Phenomenal experience seeing these folks play live. I was lucky enough to get to do that last year.
If the chance arises, a must see
Really amazing to know you saw them live
II didn't expect them to be this entertaining to watch. They are the first to raise my curiosity in flamenco. II also liked listening to their debut album, and II think there's a possibility it will be in my top 100 albums chart. Thus, II want to listen to other albums by them in the future.
Anyway, this is why II love being on BEA, since II discovered them on the customized chart of top ranked artists from Mexico, and for a guitar duo it's amazing how they're the 5th highest ranked Mexican artists on BEA and have a rank score of 380 points! So most of the stuff II get recommended on BEA ages well for me, which has been as a result of customizing charts of top ranked artists from different countries, checking the top-rated albums of all time by album rating chart and checking album's highest track-rating averages (RYM has been usually good for recommeding me music from Japan).
BEA has always surprised me by recommending this stuff of different genres II didn't expect II'll keep re-listening to, so it feels great knowing you probably have a similar taste to most of the audience here.
II've also been quite fond of listening to one-instrument songs/tracks since listening to Pink Moon by Nick Drake, so Rodrigo y Gabriela are slowly growing on me as of recently, and II didn't actually expect this at all.
One-instrument music (or two instruments) can somewhat feel more powerful than music with many instruments. II think what matters the most is the melody, along other traits, e.g. consonance, virtuosity, reverberance etc.
II can recommend a few more one-instrument music only if anyone's interested, and what II've discovered through customizing charts too.
I’ve certainly discovered artists and music that I wouldn’t have come across if it weren’t for BEA. Would be great to hear of any recommendations that you might have regrading single instrument music. An interesting genre in its own right IMO.
Yes, music sounds so different with only one instrument. It feels very dramatic and can be very powerful as a whole orchestra!
So regarding single-instrument music II'll basically start with these Romantic era pieces by these artists since II mostly like more complex music:
The most viewed interpretation of this piece on YouTube, and probably the best interpretation of it (Janina Fialkowska has done an amazing job!). Etudes are known for being pieces that challenge and train the player, so in Op. 10 there are a lot of techniques like: tempo changes, dynamic changes, varied time signatures, modulation (key changes) etc. But what's so amazing about it is that Chopin knew how to blend technicality with beauty, so Op. 10 with the beautifully soothing sound of the piano and all the compositional techniques combined, gives you music that emotionally turbulent yet gently captivating, which sounds like almost nothing similar to modern/popular music we are more comfortable with listening as it is more approachable. Op. 25 is less techincal but some people might like it more than Op. 10 because it is calmer and quite quieter than Op. 10.
Basically like Chopin's Etudes Op. 10, but this time it's a violin instead of a piano, since Chopin dedicated Op. 10 to Franz Liszt (another known amazing Romantic piano virtuoso), which were both inspired by Paganini's virtuosic skills on the violin which have never been seen and heard in the world before.
You'll probably feel the same emotional turbulence once again, with slow and soft parts too.
And Kavakos is known for being one of the greatest violin soloists out there, so this interpretation of Paganini's first ever opus is really good! Also II listened to Salvatore Accardo's interpretation before Kavakos's and it sounds great too.
Re-issued as "Kimpossible" a year later with two new tracks: Seascapes: II. "Lonely Sail" ⠀⠀&⠀⠀ Flight of a Falcon.
Roman Kim is another one of the greatest violin virtuosos, and is also a composer and an inventor.
In this album he interepts some pieces originally intended for orchestra on one violin, and on some tracks is accompanied with a piano player, and plays three Romances composed by himself.
Another amazing one-instrument pieces (violin):
Nel cor più non mi sento - Niccolo Paganini, ⠀⠀⠀performances: Dmitri Makhtin & Ziyu He.
Chaconne, Partita No. 2 BWV 1004 - Johann Sebastian Bach, ⠀⠀⠀performed by Hilary Hahn
Almost totally forgot about this album, which II discovered its artist on the Top-ranked artists from Ukraine chart, thanks to two users (Red0510 & stereo_mike) who gave Ihor 4 points in his rank score by putting this album in their charts.
It was released in 1996, but only got a following since about 2022, which is really interesting how long it took.
So this album consists of Ihor singing in a breathy falsetto while playing the same piano roll techniques most of the time, so the whole album feels ghostly and hauntingly pretty like a frozen lake surrounded by bald winter trees under foggy grey-blue sky. A very interesting listen.
Aside Nick Drake, II also liked Embryonic Journey by Jorma Kaukonen of the album Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane, and had always wondered if II could find more music which sounds like this. So one day II stumbled upon this channel of John Patrick Lowrie who voiced a character called the "Sniper" from the video-game Team Fortress 2, and he along other voice actors of characters from the same game recorded some chronological home videos with a silly plot which have been a very wholesome gift for the game's fans. However, in the same channel there were other videos which are the songs he composed with a guy called Ron Keithe for an album which they both play on their guitars as a duet. And the music sounds great! And sounds similar to Nick Drake and Jorma Kaukonen!
They play mostly their two guitars the whole album with some other session musicians of different instruments join in, and some tracks either feature just a solo piano or a guitar.
So after a while II discovered on RYM genres like American Primitivism which feature the same fingerpicking techniques, but even listening to Elizabeth Cotten and John Fahey didn't feel accessible as the Keithe Lowrie Duet's album to me.
So II really recommend this one! It's possibly one of the most underrated albums out there.
Who knew a voice actor who had made fun little videos with his wife and colleagues made some great music long back then!
Check out his other music as well.
The collaboration of Lena Platonos (a minimalist electronic composer) and Savina Yannatou (a vocalist with one of the most beautiful sounding voices II've ever heard) has led to making four album which the first two of them are two of the most beautiful-sounding albums II've ever listened to, and they happen to have minimalistic compostion of one or two instruments, such as: piano, synthesizer (which especially on the 2nd album sounds so authentic you wouldn't figure it out until being told about), bouzouki etc.
II'm not even that a big fan of minimalism, but this music is amazing!
The first album is nice but the second one is really amazing! So II recommend listening to the 2nd one first.
• Damien Saez: À nos amours & Ami de Liège. II've always been fascinated with singer-songwriter piano music. It feels so powerful and beautiful! These two tracks are great examples.
They're both from the same album "Messina", which after downloading a CSV file of the BEA overall chart II discovered it by customizing the chart showing albums with the least number of ratings.
There are probably more singer-songwriter piano music by the same artist or in the whole Nouvelle chanson française genre in general, but these are quite hard to find, so II wonder if others are familiar with other tracks like these as well.
🔴 Paramore: Decode [LIVE IN JAPAN 2009 | SUMMER SONIC] 🔴
II wish Paramore made more songs like this one. It's honestly one of the best alternative rock songs II've ever heard as of recently.
II know only "The Diaty of Jane" is similar to it. But II guess II should check more post-grunge songs. They possibly sound close enough...
II
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instead of a piano, since Chopin dedicated Op. 10 to Franz Liszt (another known amazing Romantic piano virtuoso), which were both inspired by Paganini's virtuosic skills on the violin which have never been seen and heard in the world before.
