So, what are you listening to these days?

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
Delightful Life said:
Dear Hank and John
(John & Hank Green answer viewer questions. Anything. Much laughter)
Click to expand...
I see Hank all the time on Scishow but his work with John has never really clicked with me. Neither did his novels (though I do want to give them another try because they really should be in my wheelhouse).

Delightful Life said:
Sci Show Tangents
Just like Sci Show :3
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have enjoyed that the few times I have listened. I love SciShow and SciShow Space so hearing this more casual, conversational approach is fun now and then.

My main podcast is The Ancients, part of the History Hit family of podcasts. Tristan Hughes, the host, is quite good and the subject matter, ranging from prehistory to the Dark Ages is very much in my wheelhouse. They put out two or so a week so that pretty much fills my podcast needs nicely, plus I only started listening last winter when my eyes were getting fixed so there's a couple years of back catalogue I can always dip into.

I have sampled some of the other History Hit podcasts but none of the others quite captures my attention and imagination the way The Ancients does.
 
Netherlands-based Mexican soprano Marcela Bovio built her reputation as a powerful, skillful vocalist in the world of metal, including her own band Stream of Passion (now defunct) and currently the supergroup MaYaN. However, my favorite of her work is her 2018 solo album Through Your Eyes, a collection of 11 self-penned songs backed by a trio of piano, violin, and cello along with one guest vocalist, her sister Diane. It's gentle, intimate, and very emotional. And her new single, the leadup to a new EP, is very much in that vein, replacing the piano with an acoustic guitar but with much the same qualities. I am kind of tempted to tag it "chamber pop" but I think it is the kind of music that kind of defies those neat labels.


And a couple tracks from Through Your Eyes


 
Oh crap, this is beautiful. Voces8 teamed up with the Royal Philharmonic and composer-conductor Christopher Tin for this performance of a movement from Tin's work "The Lost Birds". Lyrics are a setting of an Emily Dickinson poem. Absolutely gorgeous and powerful, exactly what I have come to expect from Tin, my favorite modern choral composer.

 
Here's some information about the album from Christopher Tin's website. As the title suggests, the theme is the loss to the world due to the many species of birds that have gone extinct due to human action (passenger pigeon, dodo, and so on).

Christopher Tin - The Lost Birds

christophertin.com christophertin.com
 
BetteTheRed said:
That is SO lovely. I'm totally scooping it for my meditation on Tuesday night.
Click to expand...
The whole album is magnificent. Listened to it on Amazon Music (but it is probably on other streaming services too) while working this afternoon.
 
Imagine blackbirds ... they create a crazy myth ... then rooked! Away it ghost ... as risen in the morning! There's more to the legend ...
 
Delightful Life said:
Ty @Mendalla for the Ancients podcast pointing

D/l some of it now to partake as I drift off to sleep :3
Click to expand...
If you want to see what Tristan looks like, watch Odyssey on YouTube sometime. History Hit owns it and he often appears at the beginning of their documentaries to promo The Ancients and History Hit in general. Oddly, he looks rather like you would expect a geeky Welsh historian to look.
 
LeAnn Rimes hasn't been my "usual". She's a solid singer but has generally fallen under the country banner which is a place I rarely go. However, this song popped up in my recommendations for reasons (no idea what reasons) and it is really, really good. It's a lovely song, LeAnn's singing is on point, and the video directed by her husband, actor Eddie Cibrian, works beautifully with the music.

 
As mentioned in another thread, my favorite singer (in case you haven't noticed) Floor Jansen has announced that she has breast cancer. It is, not surprisingly, the only topic of posts on her fan site's forums today as we all offer support and encouragement. She is on a break from the Nightwish (her current band) tour until November 20 and is apparently still committed for the European leg when it starts.

I am pretty sure I have posted "Strong" before, but it fits well here. Floor wrote it in her twenties (she's now 41) while in the band After Forever and it first appeared on the 2005 AF album "ReImagine". It's a very emotional power ballad about the health struggles of Floor's mother and how she tried to stay strong for her family. It remains part of her repertoire to this day, and she included it in her 2021 solo show available as the album Live from AFAS Amsterdam.

 
Last edited:
So this has been an up and down week in the world of Floor Jansen and her fans. Breast cancer surgery apparently went well, though now she has the wait for lab results. But today, she drops a project that has been over a year in the making. On September 3, 2021, Floor finished a 3 night run at AFAS Amsterdam. And she used funds raised on her Patreon to record it. Since then, she has released individual videos for all performances and released an album of the concert free (due to the Patreon funding) to the major streaming services. Today, the piece de resistance drops. The full concert, live and in HD, free to play on Youtube.

So, in celebration of Floor and this major milestone in her burgeoning solo career, here is the final performance from that show. Her singing partner is Dutch stage and opera singer Henk Poort. Their original performance of this song on the Dutch TV series Beste Zangers (Best Singers) earned Floor her first number one single in her home country and has recently been voted the best performance in the show's 15 seasons. Henk is an old pro at this song, having played the Phantom on stage in The Netherlands. Floor is no ingenue, however. Already twenty years in the music business by the time of Beste Zangers, she studied opera and musical singing early in career and has used that training to great effect in her metal singings. So here we have Floor Jansen as Christine Daae and Henk Poort as The Phantom.


And Henk nicely nods to his singing partner's metal background, even giving the famed (or infamous if you're in the "metal is Satan" crowd) bullhorn salute. It's a nice touch given that Henk had never even heard of Floor until that season of Beste Zangers brought them together. They now have three duets under their collective belt and regularly guest at each other's solo shows.
 
This may actually be my favorite Henk-Floor duet on Live from AFAS Amsterdam. "Sweet Curse" is one of Floor's own songs, with lyrics by her and music by her 2009-2012 band ReVamp. She originally sang it with American metal singer Russell Allen but has had a number of partners on it over the years.

 
Another singer who built her career in metal but has done a diverse range of music from baroque to modern pop and rock is Marcela Bovio. I've dropped her in here and other threads before, but not sure how much I have said. Marcela is Mexican by birth, but has spent most of her career in The Netherlands where she sings professionally and teaches voice. She used to have her own band, Stream of Passion, but wound them down a few years ago and is now one of two leads in the band MaYaN as well as doing various projects of her own. In addition, she works as a session musician, appearing as a guest with various groups, mostly in metal.

This performance from last week is a song from her 2018 album Through Your Eyes, which is about as far from her metal roots as you can get. It's almost classical, a cycle of pop songs with Marcela singing backed by a classical string trio (piano, violin, cello). The songs are apparently inspired by stories shared by fans on Marcela's Patreon. And it is a marvelous album. One of the best I have heard in the past decade or two.

This song is from that album, here with just piano accompaniment. The performance is from a week ago when she was the supporting act for the CD launch concert by her friend Charlotte Wessels, another metal singer who is expanding her repertoire as she begins a solo career.


And I've posted it before, but video that really made me go "Wow!" with Marcela Bovio is this one. It takes serious vocal chops to do baroque opera well and she nails this aria by English composer Henry Purcell.


And I can't end a discussion of Marcela Bovio without thanking my online friend Geert, a fellow member of the Floorworld fansite, who put me on to Marcela in the first place.
 
And one more from Through Your Eyes, with Marcela singing live in her home studio over the original backing tracks. This is one of my favorite songs on the album.

 
If you mute the sound is that considered mutability, or just immutable ... as sound goes on in the Magi Forest even if you are not there in person ... you indeterminate thoughts may pick up on the arch type ... it is a sign of something unknown ... and how the great unknown amuses its elf ... once know as an IHK in some Cyrillic traditions ... this another poorly fed bit of information. Perhaps that ringing in my head ... nephroids? Strange affiliations go on even if humanoids try and be autos as in autistic anonymous ide to initiate ... thus it restarts spontaneously ... reason is unknown! Humans disposed of reason in a leaning towards emotional fallout ... it too a mysterious process like entropy designated by "S" as perhaps the saving grace of escape from the situation we've mindlessly created demanding a sad song like Dark Moon ... Ned Millar did a good job oon expressing how folk like to reflect ... and thus they don't!

There is a suspicion that that daff ide person found it on the temple ... and it started a theory about things higher up in the night! More darkness to excavate ... some justt exorcise it and learn nothing ... saying that nothing is non existent because it was deposed of ... in so many word!
 
Last edited:
The kids of Concrete Castles dropped a new single today and it is one of their best yet. This young band, who started out as 3/4 of the cover band First to Eleven, continue to grow and mature as writers and performers. Still a bit amazed that I somehow got in on the ground floor of this one, even being there for the announcement of the new band.


And F211 continue to put out solid covers. Recently, as part of the release of a new acoustic album, they dropped this cover of the Oasis classic "Don't Look Back In Anger".

 
Voces8 may be best-known for their excellent classical singing, covering repertoire from the Renaissance through to modern composers like Eric Whitacre and Christopher Tin. But they have also done some wonderful popular performances over the years. This mashup of Fly Me To The Moon and Come Fly With Me is a bright and playful performance that shows off their technical prowess as well.

 
Patty Gurdy is a German musician in her mid-twenties who plays a rather unusual instrument: the hurdy-gurdy. She is also an accomplished singer both solo and in bands. And she is taking a shot at getting a song into the competition to become Germany's Eurovision 2023 entry. Here it is. I quite like it, even if it plays down the hurdy-gurdy a bit in favour of more conventional pop instrumentation.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top