Spider Sounds: Brian Eno “The Shutov Assembly”

Editor’s Note: Spider Sounds” invites members of the University of Richmond community to share their thoughts about items in the Parsons Music Library’s collection. The links included will take you to the library catalog record for the item in question, or to additional relevant information.
Today’s installment of “Spider Sounds” comes courtesy of Music Library Student worker, Aly (class of 2018) and features “The Shutov Assembly” a 1992 ambient album by English musician, composer & visual artist Brian Eno. Fun Fact: The Shutov Assembly album was dedicated to Russian painter Sergei Shutov. Thanks for contributing to Spider Sounds, Aly!

Brian Eno

The Shutov Assembly

Brian Eno - The Shutov Assembly

If you are looking for some chill, ambient studying music, or just looking for a break from your usual go-to playlist, look no further than Brian Eno’s The Shutov Assembly.

Brian Eno

Eno is one of the pioneers of electronic and rock music production, and his style varies greatly from album to album. The Shutov Assembly, an electronic album, is ambient, dynamic, and deeply calming, making it perfect for some hardcore studying or just relaxing.

You’ve almost certainly heard Eno’s music before. His music is featured on soundtracks of some very popular works, like Criminal Minds, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, American Horror Story, and even Netflix’s Stranger Things!

Eno is commonly regarded as one of the best musicians in his genre, and for good reason. His vastly diverse works will appeal to anyone, even those with the pickiest of music tastes.

Spider Sounds

Spider Sounds: Corinne Bailey Rae

Editor’s Note: “Spider Sounds” invites members of the University of Richmond community to share their thoughts about items in the Parsons Music Library’s collection. The links included will take you to the library catalog record for the item in question, or to additional relevant information.
Today’s installment of “Spider Sounds” comes courtesy of Music Library Student worker, Mary (class of 2018) and features the 2006 self-titled debut album of British soul songstress Corinne Bailey Rae. Thanks for contributing to Spider Sounds, Mary!

Corinne Bailey Rae
by
Corinne Bailey Rae

Corrine Bailey Rae

I picked this album because I am a big fan of Corinne Bailey Rae’s music.

"Like A Star" UK Single cover

2005 UK CD single cover for “Like A Star”

The first track called “Like A Star” is considered one of her biggest hits was first released as a single in 2005 and was so popular that it was re-released on her self-titled debut album. This song is generally considered a combination of soul, jazz and downtempo. The laid-back smooth tempo matched with Rae’s soulful voice and the sweet lyrics entirely written by her makes it one of my favorites to listen to on a summer night while driving.

"Put Your Records On" CD single

2006 CD single cover for “Put Your Records On”

The third track “Put Your Records On” is also another favorite of mine. It has a relatively faster tempo and a brighter feel compared to “Like A Star,” but still has the Rae’s soulful voice matched with precious lyrics that almost sound like she is talking directly to you as a close friend or a sister. As a young woman, I feel very encouraged and relieved by her sister-like tone of the lyrics in this song as she includes many phrases like “don’t need to worry” and “you’re gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow” along with positive and peaceful images of “three little birds” sitting on her window and summer coming like sweet cinnamon with her favorite music in the background. If you have had a long week and need some music to help you relax, put this song on and it will surely brighten up your day.

Spider Sounds

Spider Sounds: “Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism”

Editor’s Note: “Spider Sounds” invites members of the University of Richmond community to share their thoughts about items in the Parsons Music Library’s collection. The links included will take you to the library catalog record for the item in question, or to additional relevant information.
Today’s installment of “Spider Sounds” comes courtesy of UR Music Department faculty member Dr. Gene Anderson. Dr. Anderson is the author of a number of articles about early jazz and the analysis of wind music. He has been kind enough to share a review of a recent biography about Louis Armstrong’s early career entitled Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. Thanks, Gene!

Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism
by Thomas David Brothers

Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism book cover

Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. By Thomas Brothers. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2014.

It is difficult to imagine what more there is to know about Louis Armstrong. WorldCat lists over 9,000 works about the musician in over 17,000 publications scattered among libraries throughout the world. Besides two published autobiographies and dozens of unpublished autobiographical writings, Armstrong’s life has been recounted in a host of personal interviews, recollections by contemporaries and published biographies. Of the latter, Thomas Brothers’ Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism is the most recent, winning the 2014 Irving Lowens Book Award from the Society for American Music and becoming a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. Master of Modernism is the third Armstrong-related book by Brothers, a Professor of Musicology at Duke University, preceded by an edited selection of Armstrong’s unpublished writings, Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words (1999), and Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans (2006), of which this volume serves as a sequel.

The main thesis of Master of Modernism, which focuses on the period between Armstrong’s departure from New Orleans to join King Oliver’s Creole Band in 1922 to his successful transition into the swing era in the early 1930s, is that the trumpeter’s success “depended on his ability to skillfully negotiate the musical and social legacies of slavery,” and whose career, “can be understood as a response to these interlocking trajectories.” The fulfillment of such a thesis demands nothing short of a cultural history of the period, which Brothers eloquently and compellingly provides. Although the author contributes few new revelations to Armstrong’s well-known life story, he furnishes the most coherent narrative of these years to date by adding details and filling in chronological gaps by means of little-known archival photographs, first-person recollections from contemporaries and primary sources like black newspapers and periodicals.

Armstrong, armed with an exceptional ear, extraordinary memory and a nascent ability to read music, left his hometown with a thorough grounding in black vernacular music—its blues-infused aspects of collective improvisation, freak and obbligato playing (“playing second”) having been fostered variously by plantation music, the heterophonic singing of the Sanctified Church, King Oliver’s “monkeyshines” or “ragging the tune” to Manuel Perez’ leads, and the hawking of wares by street vendors, Lorenzo and Santiago. Most importantly, he was immersed in what Brothers calls the “fixed and variable model” of performance which “became the key ingredient in Armstrong’s mature style.”

Brothers concludes his investigation by summarizing the characteristics that made Armstrong a great melodist. The author’s stances on a few controversial issues have been addressed by others, but this exquisitely written and exhaustively researched work stands as an invaluable addition to the literature and will very likely come to be regarded, with its companion, Louis Armstrong in New Orleans, as the definitive study of Armstrong’s early career.

Spider Sounds

Spider Sounds: “The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll”

Editor’s Note: “Spider Sounds” invites members of the University of Richmond community to share their thoughts about CDs and other items in the Parsons Music Library’s collection. The links included will take you to the library catalog record for the item in question, or to additional relevant information.
Today’s installment of “Spider Sounds” comes courtesy of UR Music Department faculty member Joanna Love, Ph.D., who is on sabbatical currently but was kind enough to share her thoughts on a 5 disc set of DVDs entitled “The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” This multi-part documentary covers rock history from its beginnings in the 1950s to Lollapalooza in the 1990s and features interviews, classic footage and concert performances. Thanks, Joanna!

Time Life Video
The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll

The History of Rock 'n' Roll DVD set

I really like the Time Life History of Rock n Roll DVD collection.
It provides insightful (and entertaining) primary and secondary source interviews that situate American musical styles popular in the latter half of the 20th century within American culture, the music industry, and technological innovations.
It’s particularly interesting that you get to see the artists and producers themselves reflecting on their music.

Spider Sounds