Friday Random Ten, 5/26

1. Lunasa, "Punch". Trad irish, by the best in the business.
   
2. Dirty Three, "In fall". The Dirty Three is one of those "post-rock ensembles" which have me seriously hooked. Very, very cool stuff, which kind of defies description. Just get some and listen to it!
3. The Flower Kings, "Monsters and Men". A 20 minute long track of the newest FK release. As usual for the Flower Kings, it's bloody brilliant.
4. Peter Hammill, "The Wave". Peter Hammill is one of the original progressive rock guys, the founder of "Van Der Graff Generator". This is off of a live solo CD with Peter doing vocals and keyboards, accompanied by an electric violin. That's it - no drums, no guitars, just voice, keyboard, and violin.
   
5. Glass Hammer, "Run Lissette". Glass Hammer is a recent discovery of mine; they're an American neo-progressive band. They sound something like a cross between Yes and old Genesis, with a bit of Flower Kings for good measure. They're a really great band.
6. Porcupine Tree, "Sleep of No Dreaming".
7. John Corigliano, "Etude Fantasy 5: Melody" from "Phantasmagoria". Corigliano is one of the finest composers working today, and this is a great piece of his work. Not quite up there with his clarinet concerto, which is one of my very favorite modern compositions, but with stuff this good, "not as good as his best" is also "100 times better than anything else".
8. ProjeKct Two: "Sector Drift [The Planet Zarg Quartet Pt. 6]". Goofy free improv from one of the King Crimson projects - Fripp, Belew, and Gunn, with Belew playing a percussion synthesizer instead of a guitar. Surprisingly good considering that Belew had no experience with the instrument before recording this, live.
9. Tempest, "The Barrow Man". An neoprogressive electric folk band. These guys are interesting. The leader of the band is Swedish; they play a blend of Swedish and Celtic based melodies, in a progressive rock style. Sort of Fairport Convention on steroids, led by an electric mandolin.
10. Whirligig, "Through The Bitter Frost And Snow". A really beautiful ballad from a NYC based trad Irish band. There's also an Irish trad Irish band called Whirligig, which has nothing to do with the NYC band - one of those unfortunate collisions that tends to happen with very small-label bands.