The Crying Light

A. Winter’s Day - Tethered and Rootbound (3:44)

Winter’s Day - Winter’s Day 7” (2010)

Winter’s Day is the new collaborative guise of sometime Kranky artist (and ex-Jessamine member) Dawn Smithson and Aaron Martin.  The combination of Martin’s mournful cello with Smithson’s fractured acoustics and smoky, ethereal vocal tone makes for a thing of considerable beauty. ‘Tethered And Rootbound’ is a lush, slow-moving autumnal ballad that holds together in a loose and soulful fashion.  To make music that sounds this gracefully world-weary and spectral is no mean feat, yet Martin and Smithson make it all sound so effortless.  ‘Pepperbox’, the no-less startling B-side, goes on to confirm how successful this pairing is, leaving you with high hopes for an eventual full-length album. ~Boomkat

01 - Abel Korzeniowski - Stillness Of The Mind (3:54)

OST - A Single Man (2010)

Abel Korzeniowski about the score
A Single Man, A Single Theme

The score for “A Single Man” revolves around a single melodic theme. It slowly grows with the story, and eventually, in the last sequence of the movie, we are presented with its complete, final form. I named the theme “Stillness of the Mind”, after George’s moment of the final transformation. From the cocoon of despair and self-destruction, emerges a butterfly, living and understanding his life to the fullest, if only surviving for one day.

Sophie Hutchings - Sunlight Zone (4:48)

Sophie Hutchings - Becalmed (2010)

Becalmed is the debut album from Sydney pianist Sophie Hutchings, recorded between two different settings: one with engineer Tim Whitten, best known for his work with The Necks, and one with Tony Dupe, who records on the preservation label as Saddleback. Becalmed isn’t an entirely solo affair, and you’ll hear Hutchings’ family and friends helping her out with violin, cello and percussion - all elements that greatly help bring these recordings to life. Beautifully recorded, elegiac and romantic compositions such as ‘Sunlight Zone’ and the stunning ‘After Most’ are given an extra dimension by the lyrical flow of strings and the clever use of spatial dynamics in the mix. ~Boomkat

10. Luciano Cilio - Terzo Quadro (2:29)

Luciano Cilio - Dell’Universo Assente (2004) (Die Schachtel)

A questionable inclusion here, as Dialoghi del presente is probably much closer to contemporary classical music than to the standard Italian progressive music, but the album usually has very good reviews by the lovers of the genre.
Cilio was from Naples, and worked both in the musical and theatrical circuit of the city, collaborating with Alan Sorrenti, Shawn Phillips and Armando Piazza in the first part of the 70’s. A talented piano, guitar and sitar player, he was always interested in new forms of avantgarde music.
The album, his only record release, was released in 1977 by EMI, and composed by four main parts and an interlude.
With help from many guest musicians including well known session players Toni Esposito and Robert Fix the album is mostly instrumental and with long parts built on acoustic guitar, piano, cello and other classical instruments, the only vocal parts are wordless chants.
The album was not particularly successful and closed the career of Cilio as musician, though he was involved in many important artistic events held in Naples until his death by suicide in 1983.
A rare album, Dialoghi del presente came in a single cover, some copies having a printed inner. No counterfeits exist.
The recent reissue on Die Schachtel includes the whole album with 6 long unreleased extra tracks, and a booklet in Italian and English on the life and works of Luciano Cilio.

 08. Max Richter/Dinah Washington - On the Nature of Daylight/This Bitter Earth (CD2) (6:12)

OST - The Shutter Island (2CD) (2010) (Rhino Records)

This bitter earth
Well, what fruit it bears
Ooooh, This bitter earth

And if my life is like the dust
oooh that hides the glow of a rose
What good am I
Heaven only knows

Lord, this bitter earth
Yes, can be so cold
Today you’re young
Too soon, you’re old
But while a voice within me cries
I’m sure someone may answer my call
And this bitter earth
Ooooh may not
Oh be so bitter after all

This bitter earth
Lord, This bitter earth

What good is love
Mmmm that no one shares
And if my life is like the dust
Oooh that hides the glow of a rose

Robbie Robertson, beautifully combined the magnificent Dinah Washington’s voice on “This Bitter Earth” with Max Richter’s hypnotising piece “On the Nature of Daylight”.

This mastepiece is beyond words…

02. Greg Haines - Marc’s Descent (10:46)

Greg Haines - Until the Point of Hushed Support (2010) (Sonic Pieces 006)

Until the Point of Hushed Support is the second full-length offering from Greg Haines, born in England and now based in Berlin. Though it has been over three years since the release of his debut, Slumber Tides (Miasmah, 2006), the last few years have seen Haines traveling around the world and refining his craft, performing as a solo artist, improvising with other musicians, creating music for contemporary dance, and finally arriving at this new album, a beautifully contemplative forty-eight minute piece for string quintet, church organ, piano, percussion, and electronics. […]

05. Ute Lemper - Six Celan Songs (Paul Celan) Nächtlich Geschürtzt (6.27)

Michael Nyman - Songbook sung by Ute Lemper (1991)

Six Celan Songs
This cycle of settings of poems by Paul Celan was written between May and July 1990 by Michael Newman for Ute Lemper. Here we listen the “Nächtlich Geschürtzt” which is taken from the “Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (1995)” collection of Celan’s texts.

02. Kim Kashkashian - Garun A (3:23)

Kim Kashkashian - Hayren (2003) [ECM New Series 1754]

“An Armenian song written by Komitas (1869-1935). Komitas was a priest, composer, choir leader, singer, music ethnologist, music pedagogue and musicologist. Many regard him as the founder of modern Armenian classical music.”