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Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich
Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich
1998 | Classical
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I think this is Steve's masterpiece. On my first day on foundation in Winchester, the tutor played everybody 'Piano Phase' and it was the first time I'd heard music like that. It completely blew my mind. The repetition; the shifting; the way those two pianos phased in and out with each other; it's an extraordinary piece of work. And he resolved that through a number of pieces and he came up with Music For 18 Musicians, which was the first large scored piece he'd done. I went to India in the early 80s and I had a very small number of cassettes with me that I could listen to, and that was one of them. I remember sitting on a roof somewhere listening to that and looking up at the sky. It is a kind of cosmic record in a way. I don't know if you have to like Steve Reich to know what that is, in a way. If someone was coming to it and they didn't know that music I don't know what they'd make of it. If you're used to listening to tunes would you just wonder where the tune is? It's all about harmony and rhythm, but it's intensely beautiful."

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Pete Wareham recommended Back With A Banger by Wiley in Music (curated)

 
Back With A Banger by Wiley
Back With A Banger by Wiley
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Obviously, I'd been listening to hip hop since the mid-80s and kept half an eye on all that stuff as it grew. I was involved in rave culture really early, Spiral Tribe raves and stuff like that and clubbing in Leeds in the early 90s. There was always this really hard UK Garage sound that was great. I loved it. Wiley's come from being a kind of garage MC, one of those guys we listened to on pirate radio in Leeds. He's still got that really underground sound, the way he spits and he never loses that energy either. I was listening to his first album the other day and it still sounds like the future to me. It sounds so contemporary. When you actually analyse grime rhythms, a lot of it is from Nubian rhythms and a lot of the scales are Nubian scales, Algerian scales. When you hear grime, it just sounds like someone's car in the street in London. But then you analyse it and you realise there's all these global influences - it sounds like the whole world. This is what I wanted Melt Yourself Down to be. I wanted to try and create a sound that felt like the whole world."

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Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy
Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy
1994 | Rock
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I had an older friend who was hugely into dance music. He was a proper teenager with decks. That was all cool to us. The Prodigy were absolutely the band of the moment, we would just listen to them so much. You always feel like you're listening to a real drummer with The Prodigy, even though you're not and you're listening to highly processed drums, they always retain a sense of reality. To this day, The Prodigy have a sense of rawness and aggression and reality, and they have always felt like a real band to me, even though it's just a guy with a laptop and a couple of idiots jumping around. They made the world shift for me, and made me feel like I didn't have to choose between a PC and Nirvana, and that's liberating, knowing I could do anything I want. The music I have in this Baker's Dozen is influential, because the albums are all about breaking rules, or don't fit into camps, and that's where my band has always been. People don't really know what to call us or describe us, and that has come from having diverse influences. The best bands don't fit."

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Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated Paradise Lost in Books

Oct 10, 2017 (Updated Oct 10, 2017)  
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
6
7.7 (6 Ratings)
Book Rating
Better to read carefully otherwise hard to concentrate
Listened on Audible.co.uk.
While Milton's classic fails to live up to Dante's Inferno, it's still an interesting listen. Admittedly I completely switched off listening, it requires careful reading to understand some of the old dialect - similar to accessing Shakespeare without any context. I can vouch for reading as a fan of Shakespeare, Dante and Chaucer.

The in-between explanations barely scratched the surface. The obvious irritating misogynistic aspect was also a big turn-off although understandably rehashing some fundamental themes of the Bible. Overall, sinfully boring to listen to.
  
The Watcher
The Watcher
Ross Armstrong | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
9
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
"One of the best thrillers I've read in a while"
No doubt there are clear remnants of Girl on a Train and Rear Window in this psychological thriller, and having heard a fair few, sometimes it seems obvious who the culprit is.

However - the twists and turns to get to the climax are absolutely gut wrenching, the first personal dialogue writing in a journal is engaging and the contemporary plot is interesting - so it's well worth the read. Catherine Steadman is a great performer - and it reminded me of listening to Paula Hawkin's character - there are clear similarities. Overall, definitely worth any hype.
  
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BobbiesDustyPages (1259 KP) rated 25 by Adele in Music

Sep 5, 2017  
25 by Adele
25 by Adele
2015 | Pop
Okay I find Adele really hard to rate probably one of the hardest for me personally because on one side she has an absolutely amazing voice and as a person I think she is wonderful but on the other side when it comes down to it I have a really hard time relating to her music and because radio and every other source of media tend to play her music out so bloody fast I just don't really enjoy her actual music.

After listening to this album I'm still not a fan of her actual music even though she is seriously talented.
  
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Domonique (0 KP) rated The Witness in Books

May 12, 2018  
The Witness
The Witness
Nora Roberts | 2012 | Fiction & Poetry
10
8.5 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
I absolutely loved this book! I am a huge Nora Roberts fan and she I've never not enjoyed reading one of her stories and this one didn't disappoint. I loved Abigail and Brooks, I loved how he never gave up and broke through her wall and wore her down so that she could experience real, unconditional love in her life. And even though I knew that it was going to happen, it didn't change how happy it made me feel when I was listening to the audiobook. This was a great read as always when it comes to Nora Roberts.