#4344, Songs of the Apocalypse
Hear music based on the book of Revelations, climate disasters, and music that signals the dawn of a new age, during which folks can throw up their hands and dance. These songs of the apocalypse are not all doom and gloom.
Hear apocalyptic blues from Son House, and a work by New Orleans bluesman Chris Thomas King based around it, along with music by New York composer Phil Kline, from his mass, John the Revelator. (Named for John of Patmos, presumed author of the book of Revelations with its four horseman and seven seals.)
Listen to work by the cosmic arena dance jazz trio The Comet Is Coming, featuring London-based sax-player, mover, and shaker, Shabaka Hutchings. It’s from their apocalyptically-named Death to the Planet, “signaling an end to life as we know it, heralding the dawn of a new age…where all notions of political, social and economic hierarchy will be at once obliterated and transcended,” (Bandcamp.) Then, hear music from Shabaka and The Ancestors, a different project, together with a group of South African jazz musicians admired by Hutchings, and featuring the voice of Siyabonga Mthembu. This work reflects from the ruins, and “questions the steps to be taken in preparation for our transition individually and societally if the end is to be seen as anything but a tragic defeat.” (– Shabaka Hutchings)
Listen next to Lanterns on the Lake, a quintet from the UK (Newcastle-upon-tyne,) who lend their soaring guitars and electric violin to a song brimming with expansive post-rock-y melancholic beauty. Also, from the two record set of Bach Works and Reworks by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, hear a re-imagining of one of the pieces from The Well-Tempered Clavier that “artfully defragment[s] the creations of Bach.” Plus, music from the Greek early prog rock band featuring Vangelis, and music by Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp.
Program #4344, Songs of the Apocalypse (First aired 3/23/2020)
ARTIST: Anonymous 4
WORK: Alleluia 2 - Ascendens cristus [5:50]
RECORDING: 1000: Mass for the End of Time
SOURCE: Harmonia Mundi #907224
INFO: harmoniamundi.com
ARTIST: Son House
WORK: John the Revelator [2:32]
RECORDING: Son House — Father of the Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions
SOURCE: Columbia
INFO: Available on Amazon.com, iTunes or Spotify
ARTIST: Lionheart & ETHEL
WORK: Phil Kline: Dark Was the Night [5:50]
RECORDING: John the Revelator
SOURCE: Cantaloupe 21047
INFO: cantaloupemusic.com
ARTIST: Chris Thomas King
WORK: Revelations [5:12]
RECORDING: Dirty Southern Hip Hop Blues
SOURCE: 21st Century Blues #2106
INFO: christhomasking.com
ARTIST: Aphrodite's Child
WORK: The Four Horsemen [2:50]
RECORDING: 666 (1970)
SOURCE: Vertigo Records
INFO: Available on Spotify
ARTIST: Shabaka and The Ancestors
WORK: You’ve Been Called [6:29]
RECORDING: We Are Sent Here by History
SOURCE: Impulse! Records, due out April 24, 2020
INFO: shabakahutchings.com/ancestors
ARTIST: The Comet is Coming
WORK: Final Eclipse[6:45]
RECORDING: Death to the Planet
SOURCE: thecometiscoming.bandcamp.com
INFO: thecometiscoming.co.uk
ARTIST: Lanterns on the Lake
WORK: When It All Comes True [4:22]
RECORDING: Spook the Herd
SOURCE: Bella Union
INFO: lanternsonthelake.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Peter Gabriel
WORK: Here Comes the Flood [5:30]
RECORDING: Robert Fripp: Exposure (First Edition)
SOURCE: EG Records - #EGCD-41
INFO: Available at Amazon.com
ARTIST: Víkingur Ólafsson
WORK: …and at the hour of death [2:33]
RECORDING: Bach Works and Reworks
SOURCE: Deutsche Grammophon
INFO: deutschegrammophon.com
