So, what are you listening to these days?

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It has been a while since I have talked about American musician Piper.Ally (Ally Crowley-Duncan being her real name). She is an award winning player of the highland bagpipes who also plays a raft of other wind instruments. Ally is also a capable singer, though most of her music is instrumental. Ally dropped a new album, The Session, back in February. I kind of missed it at the time but have finally listened to it. It's a nice album, mostly instrumental with a few songs salted in. It's all written by Ally, sometimes with her accompanist/producer Don Marraffa III, with lyrics for the songs by Ally herself. Here's some samples.

This is from a live performance she did for a highland regalia store she promotes. There's interview segments at the beginning and end. The guitarist is Don.


And an official music video for the title track.


To finish, a lyric video for one of the sung tracks. Both Ally and Don sing on this one.


I have probably mentioned it before, but Ally is not of Scottish descent by birth, but by adoption. Her stepfather's family are Scottish and it was his mother that introduced Ally to Scottish culture and the bagpipes.
 
With the recent focus on Lucy Thomas' burgeoning stage career, we haven't seen her sing with her little sister Martha recently. So I was pleased to see a new sister act video from them today on Lucy's channel. Except Martha isn't so little anymore and it's getting hard to tell the two young women apart. Martha's on the left and sings first. Good choice of song. With Lucy pursuing a career in stage musicals, Disney tunes fit well in her repertoire.

 
Mexican born, Netherlands-based soprano Marcela Bovio cut her teeth in metal, fronting the band Stream of Passion and appearing with various other bands and projects. But in her solo work, she goes all over the map, putting out some wonderfully creative work, often with minimal instrumentation. Her new EP is called Harmonies Unveiled and has Marcela in a quartet with some other singers she knows accompanied by a solo piano. Here is the latest from that effort.

 
The Last Dinner Party is a tough act to label, something I admire in a band. Alt-pop? Art pop? Prog pop? Whatever you call them, they are pop but definitely a cut above your usual top-40 fare. This is a new single from their upcoming album "From The Pyre".

 
The lead singer of alt-metal greats System Of A Down covering Chris de Burgh was not something I expected to see. But Serj Tankian's simple, self-accompanied cover of "I'm Counting On You" is a thing of beauty. Like a lot of de Burgh's work from that period, it's addressed to/about his children and Serj is a father so, yeah, I guess it resonated.

 
A couple nice new videos of songs from Laufey's A Matter of Time, her new album. They are shot at Guggenheim in New York with a live band and dancers. Nice performances all round by both Laufey and the dancers.

First up, possibly my favourite song on the album, the bossa nova inflected "Lover Girl"


Then the song Clockwork, which has not been previously released as a video (other than a lyric video). A nice reflection on first date jitters.

 
You know, as I listened to "The Risk" last night that it is almost odd we haven't had more soundtrack appearances by Laufey. Her jazz-pop style is the kind of music that has fuelled the soundtracks of both romances and rom coms for decades. The new film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie seems determined to right that. Three new songs by her are on the soundtrack along with her cover of "Winter Wonderland", which came out last year on a A Very Laufey Christmas. Two of the new songs have lyric videos out. The comments on "But Beautiful" indicate it is a cover of a standard but it is not one I know.


 
Some say got*ham as the do not like the delta dawning as Don and it all goes dark as whatever comes down as led by ignorance ... isn't that devoid? Alas that's just lyric ... partly limbic ... but connected!

Then Japheth ... that's the word!
 
Homegrown Idjits (An AI Music Adventure)
We make songs about people, places, things and events — topicals they call 'em in the musicological world. Blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and more. We love all that stuff.

Music for songs on this channel is AI-generated. Lyrics are human-made, assisted by AI.

I am enjoying this musical adventure today.

 
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It is all that remains as all natural thought has been preyed upon and dismissed ... as it goes ... stupidity is preferred and thus something must be eliminated ... guess what?

There it goes ... another peace ... life is disruptive!
 
On my last day in Greece, I found out that John Lodge, bassist, vocalist, and songwriter with the Moody Blues since 1966, had passed away at 82. Like all the members of the classic lineup, John was quite integral to the band's success and wrote a number of hits for them over the years. Since he and guitarist Justin Hayward decide to call time on the band after the death of drummer (and only remaining original member) Graeme Edge, he has been doing solo work as well as dealing with health issues. Just this past winter, John put out a lovely EP. Interestingly, his daughter is married to Jon Davison, current lead singer of the prog band Yes. The Moodies were quite influential, even seminal, on prog so it's kind of a fitting family connection. From Lodge's channel a year ago, here's John with his backup band and Jon on lead vocals with one of the greatest pop-rock songs ever written, the Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin.


One of John Lodge's early contributions to the Moody Blues prodigious catalogue was "Ride My See-Saw" from On The Threshold of a Dream.


Another Lodge-written song from 1981's Long Distance Voyager, "Gemini Dream"


And a Christmas-themed solo release from last year, put out after suffering a stroke. It's a real family affair, with John's wife Kirsten and son-in-law Jon Davison on backing vocals, Davison co-producing, and daughter Emily Davison helping out with the video.

 
When Love hits ... there is a white out and all thoughts depart ... the theme of Streetcar Named Desire ... a divine Shanghai?

There on the streets and levies of Nous Orleans ... draining your assets! That' Sur ... poetic cover ...

How does one get woke from such displacement by emperors, kings, and authorities of all tyrannical types ... wormhole passages?

Squiggles ...
 
One of my most favourite bands ever.....thanks for the memories.
Rest in peace doesn't seem appropriate.....may you rest in creation with Music......
 
One of the defining bands and albums of my generation is Pink Floyd's The Wall. And a big part of that is the powerful "Comfortably Numb". From a solo show by the band's guitarist-vocalist David Gilmour at the Circus Maximus in Rome, here's a wonderful performance of the song. Note the young backup singer with glasses. That's David's daughter Romany, who has been part of his act for the last couple years.


On his last album, David included a cover of "Between Two Points" by the band The Mongolfer Brothers that featured Romany on lead vocals and harp. Here's the live version from the Circus Maximus show.

 
And back to the Moodies. This performance is from 1968 on French television. It's the classic 1960s-70s lineup (left to right)

Graeme Edge (drums)
Ray Thomas (vocals, flute, miscellaneous instruments)
Justin Hayward (vocals, guitar)
John Lodge (vocals, bass)

Mike Pinder (keyboard, mellotron, backing vocals) is in the foreground but not visible that often due to the camera angles.

The only member of this lineup still alive is Justin. I was not sure about Mike Pinder at the time of John's death but found out yesterday that he passed last year. He left the band in 1979 and kind of went behind the scenes after that, composing and things like that, so I kind of lost track of him.

The audio is pretty good for a 1960s TV broadcast and the setlist is absolutely marvellous, with songs from their first three albums, including some of the R&B and blues covers that appeared on their debut album The Magnificent Moodies prior to Justin and John joining.

 
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Many years ago in another music thread, an ape posted:

Mendalla said:
Joining them is Faouzia, a multilingual teenaged Youtube singing sensation from that city who I discovered via this performance.
Click to expand...

8 years later, Faouzia has built an impressive musical resume including a duet with US R&B great John Legend, a season on a music reality series on Chinese television, and some impressive songs. Now her debut album is finally looming. This release from that album dropped while I was away. While her musical style, modern pop with a bit of an Arabic inflection (she's Moroccan by birth but grew up in a town in Manitoba), isn't quite my taste, her voice is a nice, deep alto that I just adore and her skills at using it just keep getting better. Faouzia was doing computer engineering at University of Manitoba earlier in her career but I've never heard if she finished the degree. She was already signed at that time so I assume it was a backup plan with music as her main career plan.

 
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