Jul 12: World Cup playlists #6: Country Choices E - G

The New York Times released a list of the country choices of music from the World Cup.

Here are a few samples:

Ecuador

Signature song: Quiero Amanecer Sonando (Papa Chango); Yo Naci Aqui (Juan Fernando Velasco)

Warm-up: Vamos Ecuador Siempre Contigo (Jose Victoria); La Tri (Jombriel, Javier Neira & Jotta)

Goal music: Si Se Puede (Damiano); Quiero Amanecer Sonando (Papa Chango)

Post-match: Vuelvo a Nacer en Ecuador (Javier Neira); Nuestro Juramento (Julio Jaramillo)

Egypt

Signature song: Ya Habibty Ya Masr (Shadya)

Warm-up: Ana Ebn Masr (Mahmoud El Esseily, Moustafa Hagag & Medhat Saleh); Shagaa Mn Albak; Ya Habebty Ya Masr (Shadya)

Goal music: Ya Masr Btemlyha Ezay (Bahaa Sultan); Wala W Amalouha El Regala (Hamada Helal)

Post-match: Matkhafoosh Ala Masr (Hussain Al Jassmi); Boshret Kheir (Hussain Al Jassmi)

England

Signature song: Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)

Warm-up: Vindaloo (Fat Les); Angels (Robbie Williams); With a Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles)

Goal music: Chase the Sun (Planet Funk)

Post-match: Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond); Three Lions (Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds)

France

Signature song: Emmenez-moi (Charles Aznavour); Le Chasseur (Michel Delpech)

Warm-up: Pile (Gospel Version) (Mauvais Djo); Melodrama (Jordan Patrol); D.A.N.C.E. (Justice)

Goal music: One More Time (Daft Punk)

Post-match: Freed From Desire (Gala); Magic in the Air (Magic System)

Germany

Signature song: Zeit, Dass Sich Was Dreht ($oho Bani, Herbert Grönemeyer & Ericson)

Warm-up: Kernkraft 400 (Zombie Nation)

Goal music: Major Tom (Peter Schilling)

Post-match: Tage wie diese (Die Toten Hosen); Der Zug hat keine Bremse (Mia Julia, Malle Anja & Lorenz Buffel)

Ghana

Signature song: Kakalika (DopeNation); Ntem Ntem (King Promise)

Warm-up: Ghana Black Stars (2006 World Cup) (Obaayaa Grace Ashly); Gidi Gidi (Fire) (Stonebwoy); STREET CROWN (African Dancehall) (Shatta Wale)

Goal music: Kakalika (DopeNation)

Post-match: Dem Confuse (Shatta Wale); Oofeets (Sarkodie & Prince Bright)

May 15: Berlin

Berlin is a city which has influenced a great many musicians. 

This Guardian piece is a good place to start.

David Bowie is connected with the city, and released his Berlin Trilogy of albums, working with Brian Eno.

In the mid-1970s, David Bowie’s life had become increasingly unstable, dominated by cocaine addiction, paranoia and creative exhaustion. Seeking anonymity and recovery, Bowie relocated to Berlin, then a divided city marked by Cold War tension and artistic experimentation. Berlin offered Bowie distance from celebrity culture and a sense of anonymity that allowed him to rebuild both personally and creatively.

Source: https://www.davidbowieworld.nl/berlin-trilogy/

Lou Reed also spent time living there.

Public Service Broadcasting's "Bright Magic" was the band's "Berlin" album.

The Guardian review described it as "a selective history of Berlin, split into three distinct movements: the city’s rise, a celebration of Weimar-era hedonism and a more abstract three-track requiem."

The final track on the album is an interesting one as it features a Kurt Tucholsky poem atop an ambient background.

'Ich und die Stadt'.

Narrated by Nina Hoss.

This poem has also featured in the classic series 'Heimat'.

Bob Mould has also spent time living in the city, and talks about his time living there.

Rammstein are of course linked with the city having been born there.

Apr 10: Eberhard Weber

Eberhard Weber is a German bassist. He has sadly retired from playing following a heart attack which happened in April 2007.

He played with a great many of my favourite musicians.

The first time I saw him I was completely blown away by his style and sound. This was a concert with the Jan Garbarek Group performing 'Molde Canticle' from 'I took up the Runes' at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.

More on that to come in a few days' time...

Portrait by Gert Chesi - Shared under CC license

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberhard_Weber#/media/File:Eberhard_Weber_-_Portrait_by_Gert_Chesi.jpg

I then saw him around a half dozen other times with the Jan Garbarek Group, including a concert at the St. Andrews Hall in Norwich, where I had front row seats.

One night in Norwich I also went to see him play a solo concert at the Norwich Arts Centre. He said quite a bit between the music that he played expressing thanks and surprise that people would come out to watch him "playing with himself".

This was a reference to the echo and delay unit that he used to layer up sounds and create some wonderful effects and tunes.

He started out working with other musicians, and recorded several solo albums too.

He also played with the Colours Quartet and recorded several albums, which had Lyle Mays as one of the players too.

Here's an early performance.

A tribute concert was held in Stuttgart in 2015.

It was released as an ECM album called 'Hommage a Eberhard Weber' - I have a copy of that album.

Musicians playing were: Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Scott Colley, Danny Gottlieb, SWR Big Band, Helge Sunde.

Weber's latest albums, Résumé (2012) and Encore (2015) comprise solos from his performances worldwide with The Jan Garbarek Group, overdubbed with keyboards/treatments by Weber, saxophone by Garbarek, and flügelhorn by Ack Van Rooyen.

This included a long piece which was written by Pat Metheny.

This was recorded with musicians in front of a screen which showed some of his solo work.

One of the final pieces of music that the late Lyle Mays (who will be remembered in due course in a post on the blog) recorded is called 'Eberhard' and is a tribute to him.

Seek out some of his work with Jan Garbarek.

Finally, it's also worth saying that he also worked with Kate Bush.

A REDDIT post tells the story by sharing images of books.

He talks about the experience in an interview:

She called me once when I was in Hamburg. I couldn’t even believe it was her. The hotel had a message from Kate Bush and I called her back. She told me she loved ECM music in general and my music in particular. She wanted me to participate in one of her albums. She sent me a tape of the two tracks she wanted me to play on and asked me to think about countermelodies. So I did that and flew to London where she lived. I thought it would be like the jazz people I work with and that within two hours, the first tune is done and within another hour, the second tune is done. 

No. It’s very different, which I learned in this, my first appearance in the pop world.
They checked every note—everything, everything, everything. The first tune took six to eight hours. The second one the same. It explained to me why these pop people take so long to produce their albums. They never decide right away what to do. So when I came up with some ideas they said “yes, yes, let’s record it to 48 tracks.” Then I’d have another idea and again, it would be “yes, yes, yes, let’s do it this way.” I recorded dozens of ideas and in the end, only one was accepted. These people have the attitude that it’s only later when they mix that they decide. This is very unusual compared to the older ECM productions in the '70s when I started. 

Making a record only took three days: two days of recording and one day of mixing. 

Only later on when it became more complicated with synths and such did it take longer. 

But pop people take six months or even longer to make a record."

Here's one of the tracks he played on:

Mar 31: Deutschland

This track is by the German rock band Rammstein, known for their massively over the top stage shows.

Their 2019 track, which marked their comeback after ten years of no new music, was accompanied by a nine minute video which takes a bit of explaining. There were also some band controversies. 

Warning: the video contains some violent imagery and the links contain a few rude words

It is a history of Germany, starting in Germania Magna in 16 AD according to the caption.

More details on the imagery in the video in the Wikipedia article above.

The lengthy music video sparked controversy; its dark, violent, and macabre style—typical of the band's aesthetic—features various events from German history, including Roman times, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Middle Ages, witch hunting, the November Revolution, the Golden Twenties, Nazi book burnings, the Hindenburg disaster, the First and Second World Wars, the Holocaust, the Weimar Republic, the Red Army Faction, and the division of the country into West and East Germany; it also features science fiction scenes set in outer space, cannibalism in which people eat Germania, the personification of Germany, and a bank robbery featuring lead singer Till Lindemann crossdressing as Ulrike Meinhof. The Afro-German actress Ruby Commey appears as Germania throughout the video.

If you get the chance to see a live performance, take it...

Mar 3: Bright Magic and Berlin

This Public Service Broadcasting album Bright Magic is their 'Berlin' album.

Via Loudersound.

It's their most ambitious undertaking yet and even includes vocals from Einstürzende Neubauten leader Blixa Bargeld. It brings the listener to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Hauptstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin.

Walter Ruttmann’s radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (or Weekend), which is sampled on three of Bright Magic’s tracks provides a key aural resource. Created in 1928, the piece collaged speech, field recordings and music into a sonic evocation of the city.

I've always been excited by the work of the band's multi-instrumentalist songwriter J Willgoose Esq. and there is a good geographical connection once again in this album (as there was with 'Everest' and the coal-mining theme of 'Every Valley'.

Combining sound archaeology and the flâneuring of the psychogeographer, one street-level pursuit of the city’s energy involved Willgoose walking the Leipzigerstrasse, site of the city’s first electric streetlight, using a wide-band electromagnetic receiver from Moscow’s Soma Laboratories. “I walked up and down recording electrical currents and interference,” he laughs. “You can hear a few of these little frequency buzzes, clicks and impulses in Im Licht (a song inspired in part by pioneering lightbulb manufacturers AEG and Siemens). It’s what I was trying to do in the wider sense, I suppose – to capture those tiny little pulses you pick up while walking through a city.”

Credit: Loudersound

 

Bright Magic is the latest album from the band Public Service Broadcasting. It is influenced by the city of Berlin, and influenced by 'Metropolis', Kraftwerk, Vangelis, Marlene Dietrich, Weimar era Germany and the history of the city. I was due to visit in 2020 for an ERASMUS trip, but the pandemic ended those plans.

I have blogged about this band and their music many times before. This is another triumph after 'Every Valley' and 'The Race for Space'. The final track embraces the quotidian... with a rendition of a poem by Kit Tucholsky called 'Eyes in the Big City' with vocals by Nina Hoss. 

Check out the album on your favourite streaming service... 

Mar 2: Cities and Music #2: Cologne and Kraftwerk

A nice piece in 'The Guardian' explores the legacy of 'Autobahn'. It's just over fifty years since the LP was released.

Tim Jonze explores the legacy of this album and in particular, the main title track.

Astonishingly for a 22-minute 43-second song about the German road network, it somehow managed to change the musical landscape forever.

I remember my Uncle Stan playing me this album on his quadrophonic sound system - it must have been shortly after it came out.

There is a connection with Köln here too, which I visited in 2024 for Practical Pedagogies.

For me the classic Keith Jarrett concert is the main connection I think of with the city.

The story behind its creation is also fascinating.

A Jude Rogers' piece in the 'New Statesman' - I blogged about her book at the very start of the blog.

Feb 21: T is for Tangerine Dream

An alphabet of bands and artists as a series through February. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.

Tangerine Dream is a band whose line-up has changed repeatedly over the years, but which continues to this day, and will continue indefinitely because its about the music and the idea and not the particular people who make up the band at any one point. The Wikipedia page explores all the musicians who have contributed to the project. I first saw them over 40 years ago.

It was founded by Edgar Froese and other key musicians for some years were Christopher Franke and Johannes Schmoelling.

The current line up is made up of the multi-instrumentalists Thorsten Quaeschning, violins from Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick - the most recent addition.

Their White Eagle album from 1982 has a nicely geographical front cover. The deluxe version has some excellent bonus tracks as well. This is one of my favourites.

I was very pleased to catch them playing a 50th anniversary concert based around their album 'Phaedra' at the Barbican in 2024. 

The 2nd half of the concert (after an hour long performance of the main album as a session) was full of hits and started with a storming 'No Happy Endings'. This is on the soundtrack to the video-game Grand Theft Auto V.

Here's a live performance of Madagasmala.

 

There is also this video featuring the last live performance by Edgar Froese in June 2014 and a cracker of a song 'The Silver Boots of Bartlett Green' featuring two of the current line-up.

Thorsten Quaeschning released an album with Steve Rothery of Marillion as a duo called Bioscope in 2025. It's very good also.

One of my favourite tracks played live is called The Silver Boots of Bartlett Green. This was often the final track played at gigs and this recording is particularly special as it was the final time that 

In January 2026, they released a recording of a special 50th anniversary concert at the Barbican where they played their album Phaedra plus a selection of other tracks. It's in my collection. I was there at the event!

Discography

There isn't room to put the full discography of albums as they have released over 100 I believe... 

Here's just a few ... from older albums to more recent ones...

AI generated so there will be some errors.

The penultimate line-up played a concert at the opening of a new concert venue, and the resulting gig is available free of charge here. It's wonderful...

What 'T' does your algorithm throw up? 

Let me know in the comments

And also your Tangerine Dream memories....

Jan 24: Keith Jarrett's Köln masterpiece

One of the greatest albums of all time, and still the bestselling solo jazz album – and the bestselling solo piano album – of all time, selling more than 4 million copies to date - I have one of them.

It was recorded on this date, back in 1975. 51 years ago today!

There will be a few posts which will be posted on the anniversaries of particular events and this is one of them.

The story behind its creation is also fascinating. It very nearly didn't happen, and the piano it was recorded on had some serious problems which Jarrett overcame, and which contribute to the unusual sound and arrangements on the album. He was exhausted and hungry when he performed.

Jarrett himself has strong feelings about the recording.

I visited the venue where it was recorded in 2024 when I was in Köln for an educational event. 

The city has connections with other bands including Kraftwerk - we will return to them later in the year...

A documentary has been made about the circumstances under which this piece was recorded. The trailer for it is here. I would like to go and see the finished film if possible.

Jan 19: Record Labels #1: ECM

The first of a series of posts featuring some record labels which champion music from global artists.

The record label which I perhaps have more of than any other in my collection is ECM.

ECM was founded by Manfred Eicher.

The covers of ECM music are always works of art.

This Substack article showcases some.

I have a great many ECM records in my collection. 

Here's five of my favourites, although ask me again tomorrow and I'll choose a different five:

1. 'Twelve Moons' - Jan Garbarek Group (1993)

2. Pat Metheny - 'Bright Size Life' (1976)

3. Keith Jarrett - 'Köln Concert (1975)

4. Anouar Brahem - 'Le pas du cat noir' (2002)

5. Ale Moller and Lena Willemark - 'Nordan' (1994)

Some of these will have their moment on the blog as well....

Here's the opening track from one of the albums, the wonderful 'Twelve Moons' - played live. I saw this band and this track performed live.

We also had sad news yesterday of the passing of an artist who has recorded many times with ECM: the virtuoso guitarist and pianist Ralph Towner. A real multi-instrumentalist.