Birds (North Sea Radio Orchestra Album)
   HOME
*





Birds (North Sea Radio Orchestra Album)
''Birds'' is the second album by the English cross-disciplinary musical ensemble North Sea Radio Orchestra. It was released on December 1, 2008, on Oof! Records. Background ''Birds'' was a continuation of the work begun on the ensemble's first album, ''North Sea Radio Orchestra'', consisting almost entirely of original compositions and containing settings of antique poetry from the Victorian and Edwardian eras and earlier. As with the previous album, ''Birds'' contained settings of poems by Thomas Hardy ("The Wound" and "Phantom") and Alfred, Lord Tennyson ("The Flower" and "Move Eastward Happy Earth", both of which had been in the repertoire of the ensemble since its earliest concerts in 2002). ''Birds'' expanded the band's choice of poetry for setting choice by including settings of Geoffrey Chaucer ("Now Welcom Somer") and William Blake ("The Angel", "A Poison Tree" and "Golden Cage"). Almost all of the music was written by group leader Craig Fortnam with the exception of " ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual Phonograph record#78 rpm disc developments, 78 rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP record, long-playing (LP) records played at  revolutions per minute, rpm. The album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the album era. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983 and was gradually supplanted by the cassette tape during the 1970s and early 1980s; the populari ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tortoise (band)
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1990. The band incorporates krautrock, dub, minimal music, electronica and jazz into their music, a combination sometimes termed "post-rock". Tortoise have been consistently credited for the rise of the post-rock movement in the 1990s. History 1990s The group's origins lie in the late 1980s pairing of Doug McCombs (bassist with Eleventh Dream Day) and drummer John Herndon, who initially wanted to establish themselves as a freelance rhythm section (like reggae legends Sly and Robbie). The idea did not come to fruition, but their interest in grooving rhythms, as well as their recording studio knowledge led to partnerships with drummer John McEntire and bassist Bundy K. Brown (both formerly of Bastro and Gastr Del Sol) joining, followed by percussionist Dan Bitney. Though songs are credited to all the musicians, McEntire became perceived as the group's guiding force, as his contributions mainly took the form of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Singing
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir. Singers may perform as soloists or accompanied by anything from a single instrument (as in art song or some jazz styles) up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Different singing styles include art music such as opera and Chinese opera, Indian music, Japanese music, and religious music styles such as gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues, ghazal, and popular music styles such as pop, rock, and electronic dance music. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged, or improvised. It may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual as part of music education or ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Chamber Organ
Carol Williams performing at the United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel.">West_Point_Cadet_Chapel.html" ;"title="United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel">United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel. In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more Pipe organ, pipe divisions or other means for producing tones, each played from its own Manual (music), manual, with the hands, or pedalboard, with the feet. Overview Overview includes: * Pipe organs, which use air moving through pipes to produce sounds. Since the 16th century, pipe organs have used various materials for pipes, which can vary widely in timbre and volume. Increasingly hybrid organs are appearing in which pipes are augmented with electric additions. Great economies of space and cost are possible especially when the lowest (and largest) of the pipes can be replaced; * Non-piped organs, which include: ** pump organs, also known as reed organs or harmoniums, which ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Acoustic Guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. The original, general term for this stringed instrument is ''guitar'', and the retronym 'acoustic guitar' distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4. Guitar strings may be plucked individually with a pick (plectrum) or fingertip, or strummed to play chords. Plucking a string causes it to vibrate at a fundamental pitch determined by the string's length, mass, and tension. (Overtones are also pres ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Vernon Elliott
Vernon Pelling Elliott (27 July 1912 – 12 October 1996) was a British bassoonist, conductor and composer. Born into a musical family in 1912, Elliott took up the bassoon at a very early age. From then on he had an eventful, busy and very musical life, one which saw him as a founder member of the Philharmonia Orchestra, a regular player at the Royal Opera House, a much-valued member of Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group orchestra, a conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, longtime professor at Trinity College of Music, London and occasional writer. In 1959 he was asked to help Oliver Postgate by writing a bassoon theme for ''Ivor the Engine''. He went on to compose the highly evocative music to the Smallfilms productions of ''Noggin the Nog'', '' The Seal of Neptune'', ''Pogles' Wood'', ''Pingwings'' and ''Clangers ''Clangers'' (usually referred to as ''The Clangers'') is a British stop motion, stop-motion children's television series, consisting of short films ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cardiacs
Cardiacs are an English rock band formed in Kingston upon Thames by Tim Smith (lead guitar and vocals) and his brother Jim (bass, backing vocals) in 1977 under the name Cardiac Arrest. The band's sound fused circus, baroque pop and medieval music with progressive rock and post-punk, adding other elements like nursery rhymes and sea shanties. Tim Smith was the primary lyricist, noted for his complex and innovative compositional style. He and his brother were the only constant members in the band's regularly changing lineup. The band created their own indie label, the Alphabet Business Concern, in 1984 and found mainstream exposure with the single " Is This the Life?" from their debut album ''A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window'' (1988). Their second album, ''On Land and in the Sea'' (1989), was followed by '' Heaven Born and Ever Bright'' (1992), which displayed a harder edged, metal-leaning sound retained in the subsequent albums ''Sing to God'' (1996) and ''Gu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Teutonic influences. Vaughan Williams is among the best ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Art Bears
Art Bears were an England, English avant-rock Musical ensemble, group formed during the disassembly of Henry Cow in 1978 by three of its members, Chris Cutler (percussion, texts), Fred Frith (guitar, bass guitar, violin, keyboards) and Dagmar Krause (vocals; previously of Slapp Happy). The group released three studio albums between 1978 and 1981, and toured Europe in 1979. In 2008 Cutler, Frith and others formed Art Bears Songbook, an Art Bears "review" project that performed at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec, Canada. Biography Art Bears were formed during the recording of Henry Cow's fifth album in January 1978. Disagreements had arisen over the album's content: Frith, Cutler and Krause favoured song-oriented material, while the rest of the band preferred instrumental compositions. As a compromise, Frith, Cutler and Krause agreed to release the songs already recorded on their own album, ''Hopes and Fears (Art Bears album), Hopes and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, bassist John Greaves, and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members alongside Frith and Hodgkinson. An inherent anti-commercial attitude kept them at arm's length from the mainstream music business, enabling them to experiment at will. Critic Myles Boisen writes, " heir soundwas so mercurial and daring that they had few imitators, even though they inspired many on both sides of the Atlantic with a blend of spontaneity, intricate structures, philosophy, and humor that has endured and transcended the ' progressive' tag." While it was generally thought that Henry Cow took their name from 20th-century American composer Henry Cowell, this has been repeatedly denied by band members. According to Hodgkinson, the name "He ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Organ (magazine)
''Organ'' is a British independent magazine covering music, art and underculture. Based in London, the magazine was founded in 1986 as a handmade fanzine and has evolved many times over the years. It has covered a variety of rock, alternative, punk, progressive, metal and experimental music as well as a wide range of contemporary art and visual artists. The ''Organ'' is run by Sean Worrall and Organart, a music group which includes a radio and TV show, a mail-order music distribution system, artwork, animation and video making, gig promotion (there have been over 1000 Organ shows in London, many big names have made their first London moves via Organ gigs) and ORG records. ORG is an alternative record label which has released material by bands including Cardiacs, Dream City Film Club, Cay, Sleepy People, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, King Prawn, My Vitriol, Pop-A Cat-a-Petal (later Ultrasound), The Monsoon Bassoon, Breed 77, Pure Reason Revolution, Cynical Smile, Inaura, Rhatiga ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]