Word: folk
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...took to the ice in the pairs figure-skating final in Torino last week, most Chinese knew the song they skated to by heart. The Offspring of Dragons celebrates the glory of a mighty civilization. "There's a dragon in the ancient East, its name is China," go the folk song's stirring lyrics. By the time the final standings were tallied in the Olympic competition, the Zhangs' choice of music seemed particularly prescient. Although Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin won the 12th consecutive pairs gold for Russia (or, previously, the Soviet Union), the Chinese nabbed the silver (Zhang...
...lead singers--are striking. Brain's voice in particular has a beautiful stand-out quality, shown off on the melancholy Without Your Love." Clean, melodious guitars carry the album, while piano, trumpet, and the use of unconventional time signatures (including, yes, 5/4,) create a sophisticated feel. (Pittman cites British folk rockers Fairport Convention as the single biggest influence on this album.) Young and Sexy sound poppy and full of energy, even on the mellow tracks which are their strongest...
...could easily mistake their music for early Shellac instrumentals, revealing the fundamental affinities between the styles.Of course, the links of influence between Nintendo tunes and rock music wasn't purely one-sided. The popular sounds of the 1980s, responding to a challenge of ornamentation from punk rock and acoustic folk, made their mark on the Nintendo music sensibility, with mixed results. The "Woods" theme from Castlevania II sounds like a Van Halen outtake on speed, as its mathematical, shredding guitar lines lead into glorious faux-hardcore breakdowns. Yet across the genre, cheesy overharmonized lines abound, suggesting the danger of complexity...
...Enya-like heights, but the exotic musical hybrid that is Bic Runga. In 2002, a year before Westenra hit her high notes, this Maori-Chinese singer-songwriter took the simple guitar hooks of Drive to a new level with Beautiful Collision, an album in which she exploded genres - from folk to rock to country - with the glassy resonance of her voice. So it's strange to find her latest release, Birds, darker and scuzzier sounding, as if it were an original '60s session tape rediscovered in an old suitcase...
...resulting concert film, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, is a portrait of the folk-rock artist as an aging man, in which Demme amps up Prairie Wind's intimacy by several notches. The film makes you feel that an artist who always seemed to be standing on the other side of a milewide canyon is suddenly in your living room. Demme keeps things cozy the old-fashioned way with long close-ups, slow pans (using a Steadicam) and editing cuts that are as sure and steady as the music and musicianship. Some sequences create such an ambiance of immediacy that...