So, what are you listening to these days?

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A Dutch singer who lives in Sweden and fronts a Finnish band singing in German. Can you any more multinational and multilingual than Floor Jansen? Earlier this year, she taped an appearance on the German TV music series Sing Meinen Song (she previous appeared on its Dutch counterpart Beste Zangers) and the season with her is now running in Germany. Her first performance, from her Youtube channel:


And she's going to be passing through Canada this week as her main gig as lead singer of Nightwish brings her to Toronto and Montreal to kick off the Western Hemisphere leg of their long-delayed (by COVID) world tour in support of their last album, which is now two years old.

And there's another video out from Envy of None. I have listened to the entire album and it is amazing. Nothing like putting some veterans in with some new talent to see what comes out.

 
Was playing this game called Aragami 2 and came across this Endless by Emi Evans. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
So I've added a few others she has done. Wonderful!!!
 
Still LOTS of podcasts

New music* is from a Henry Rollins podcast KCRW Broadcast. 2 hours in the morning.

*I recently got partially knocked oot of a rut/made aware I was stuck in a behaviour/BS loop when I heard an interview with GRIMES. What a fascinating person. She mentioned that what she thinks aboot people's negative reaction to new music is that it can give an opportunity for those people to intentionally seek oot new music and or to find oot why they reat that way. She also did a riff on how music is geared towards "young people" demo thus no wonder why many radio stations play "oldies"--since that music was made for when those people were of that demo.
 
Delightful Life said:
Still LOTS of podcasts
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The Ancients, from the History Hits family of podcasts is my go to these days. Ancient history and culture is in my blood, I think.

Delightful Life said:
What a fascinating person.
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She's not really my cuppa musically but she's got some interesting stuff going on.

I am always looking for new music and musicians. Used to be very down on metal. Now I am constantly sampling new genres of it.
 
CBC keeps me apprised of contemporary music. Some of it is very good. I keep up with the Junos, etc., but my heart is given to classical music. Most days, I listen to some combo of Tempo and Tom Allen for as many hours as I can juggle time zones to make it work.
 
And a new album from a band I have recently discovered dropped today. Pirates is the latest from Austrian symphonic metal band Visions of Atlantis. The band is bit unique in that it has both female (French singer Clementine Delauney currently holds this role) and male (currently Michele Guaitoli) leads and most songs are duets between them. Clementine is another one of those classically trained, big-voiced soprano singers so beloved of the symphonic metal genre, Michele is more of straight-up rocker. It's a concept album with, not surprisingly, pirates involved.

The three cuts released in the lead up to the album's release.



 
VoA has been prone to lineup changes at a pace that approaches Yes (my gold standard for a band that changes lineup like I change underwear) levels at times. Here's Clementine with Siegfried Samer, who was her male counterpart from 2013 to 2018.

 
BetteTheRed said:
I think a band with rapid line-up changes is sometimes blessed with a very clear vision.
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And sometimes cursed with too many clear visions backed by big egos. That has certainly been Yes' issue a lot of the time. I had hoped Chris Squire's death and the reunion for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction might somehow bring ex-lead Jon Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe (who seems to be the current leader of the band) back together but apparently not. Jon's still touring solo and Yes has a new lead singer, the second since his departure.

And then there's changes due to health and other non-creative reasons. Nightwish changed drummer because the original suffered from chronic insomnia and couldn't handle touring anymore (he worked in their back office for a while, not sure where he is now). And mental health seems to have been a factor in their recent change of bassist.
 
Here are some of the podcasts I have been listening to

The Hidden Djinn
(Rabia Chaudry talks aboot a creature from her culture, the Djinn. With interviews and her own experiences with them. Yes it seems there are Djinn in Toronto too)

All of the Above with Norman Lear (Norman Lear and friend interview interesting people)

Conan O'Brian Needs a Friend (Conan O'Brian so desperately needs someone to call a friend he hires two people to help him with a podcast so he can try to convince people to be his friend)

Various Dr Who audio dramas by both BBC and Big Finish Productions. From these I still get my Original Series kick with new stories (Tom Baker is my fav, followed by Pertwee). I also appreciate Paul McGann more.

Dr. Gamesho
(Jo Firestone and Manolo Moreno play original games that people send them. And their friends and people phone in to play them.)

Edict Zero FIS is finally finished its run. A long audiodrama with soooo many different characters set on an Earth Colony world in the Future! Where the main characters are the Law. Then really weird stuff happens lol

Good Fire
(Amy Cardinal Christianson talkd aboot indiginous Fire practices...)

Kincaid the Strangeseeker
(Kinda Kolchak the Night Stalker set in our era. In front of a live audience)

Hey Riddle Riddle
(Three comedy friends try to stump with riddles)

Sapphire and Steel
(The further adventures of Steel and Sapphire, agents of reality sent when reality itself is in peril. One of my fav drama series of all time. Very good writing, weird, unpredictable, with of course Dr. Who wobbly sets lol plus I love Joanna Lumley)
 
New music Friday! Even as she tours the globe with Nightwish (the North American leg began almost a month ago in Toronto and ended last weekend in LA), Floor Jansen continues to ramp up her budding side project as a solo artist. Her second original solo song dropped overnight. As I commented on her fan site, it feels almost like something from a musical where the protagonist reflects on something in the story, then belts out a powerful response.

 
Mendalla said:
I had hoped Chris Squire's death and the reunion for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction might somehow bring ex-lead Jon Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe (who seems to be the current leader of the band) back together but apparently not. Jon's still touring solo and Yes has a new lead singer, the second since his departure.
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And any chance at a true classic Yes reunion has likely gone to the grave with Alan White. White has been behind the kit for Yes since 1972. He also played drums in the Plastic Ono Band that backed John Lennon on his post-Beatles work (including Imagine) and in George Harrison's backup band on All Thing Must Pass. Alan passed away the other day at 72 as the current lineup of Yes prepared for another tour. With Neil Peart's death less than two years ago, that's two great drummers gone to the big band in the sky in recent times.

As for Yes, they'll probably still tour. Chris Squire and Steve Howe have both talked about how they see Yes as more of an orchestra than a band and that changes in lineup are just part of how Yes works just as a symphony changes members regularly. The hope is that the band might outlive all of them. Not sure who will drum for them now, though. Bill Bruford, their founding drummer, is retired from playing now so it will have to be someone new to the band since he and White are the only drummers they've had in their 50+ year history. In recent years, they've been starting to pull in younger musicians (e.g. current lead singer Jon Davison) so maybe someone completely new.
 
The career of Dutch mezzo-soprano metal singer Simone Simons has a lot of parallels with her compatriot and friend Floor Jansen. Started in the music industry as a teen, classically trained with a voice that is equally at home in rock and classical styles, and a bandmate of Dutch guitarist/songwriter/growler Mark Jansen (no relation to Floor save professionally), the guy who does the guttural growls in the video below. There are differences, too. Simone has now been in Epica for almost 20 years, vs. Floor who has been in three different bands in the same time period. Simone's vocal range seems more limited than Floor's too, at least to my ears. And she still has not really branched out on her own the way Floor is doing right now, at least in music (she has a side career as a fashion and style influencer on social media, though).

The pretty redhead with a powerful voice is very much her own distinct force in the world of symphonic metal, though. Here she is from a legendary Epica performance that is finally getting an official release as part of a boxed set of early Epica material.


And my favorite Epica performance, from their 2021 Omega Alive virtual show. This powerful song is symphonic metal at its best.

 
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I've always loved "Kismet" and in particular this song by Vic Damone and Ann Blyth.
And just for the fun of it I wondered what it would sound like in a different language.
I found two very beautiful version one in Russian, which gets my highest praise and then one in French which is lovely too.
 
Of course, singing Stranger in Paradise in Russian is going full circle since the melody is nicked from one of the Polovtsian Dances by Alexandr Borodin. Most of the show is based on his music, in fact.
 
The royal says I Gore it and thus Gore lost an election under weird conditions that set Trump off ... the man is something of a stand-alone in the Wahl (a strange field)!

Be vigilant for the Fink King will get to the simple ... and have them vote for him ... albeit blindly!

Here in NB folk are being held in confinement for being vigilant against thieves ... the powerful thieves begin to fret ... maybe they are insecure about false statements?

Then ads claim that every source is the best ... #1 as I failed to see ... a subtle vision? An Eire crew sees it ...

Virtue being out there ... like intellect in an emotional environment ... should emotions be kohl 'd as the Arc Tick ... a rule of bugs? Total MS Understanding ... get it if you intend on living in chaos ... thus snappy emotions!

Crab eth witchcraft ...
 
So yesterday I had the pleasure, thanks to the miracle of modern technology that is livestreaming, of seeing the marvelous Floor Jansen live in her set at the PinkPop festival in the Netherlands. In fact, I saw her twice, because three hours after her own set, she also appeared as part of the band Nightwish. Yep, twice in the same afternoon, and it was apparently hot as blazes over there, too. Here's a highlights reel from the livestream of Floor's solo set, featuring her two recent singles (the first original solo songs in her 25 year career) "Fire" and "Storm" as well as her duet of "Phantom of the Opera" with Dutch stage star Henk Poort. The chart success of her original recording of the duet with Henk, which was her biggest hit ever in her own country at the time, was one of the events that helped convince Floor it was time to launch a solo career on the side.

 
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