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Thank You for the Music

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Edited by Joseph Jensen, Friday, 21 Mar 2014, 13:58

a television screen

 

It all started with the BBC and a band called The Cinematic Orchestra. I was introduced to them by a promoter friend from Europe when I was 18 and over the last ten years I have come to be an avid fan of their music. Sadly none of my friends share my passion. They released an album called Ma Fleur when I was about 20 which contains this song,  To Build A Home.

The Cinematic Orchestra - To Build a Home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB0ordd2nOI

I had heard pieces of it on various BBC sponsored programs, it features in a David Attenborough nature program but it wasn't until I heard it an a pivotal point in the Sherlock Holmes series that I stood up straight and said to my friends 'Hey now, what are you doing using this song?". I should quantify, I had a copy of this album on CD at my brothers wedding and I remember being moved to tears at one point listening to it, so to hear it as a backing track was surprising to say the least. Moving on.

Over years I came to accept that this was more than coincidence, a record I had fallen in love with had become a piece that would be used in all kinds of television programs. It makes sense that such a beautiful song would be. Skip forward to this year, and I hear this song on a television advert.

C2C - Down the Road

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1uUIJPD0Nk

C2C are four DJs who won the world DMC championship for four years running from (I think) 2003-2007. This is no small feat. I was introduced to them by a DJ called Dark Matter in 2008, he showed me their 2005 DMC winning performance on youtube and to this day I rate it as one of the most spectacular pieces of musicianship I have ever seen. You can find it on youtube if your into that kind of thing. Anywho, C2C never released an album following their success until Tetra came out in late 2012. It is a wonderful album full of the kinky, inane but ridiculously polished music only they are capable of. So to hear it in a CAR ADVERT made me actually very happy (surprisingly), what a great pay-off for a great bunch of guys and also you never know, with Shazam, maybe they could get some new fans. I was still very shocked, enough that I stood straight up and said, 'Holy shit, thats C2C", when I first heard the advert. It's ok, my friends think I'm weird too.

So anyway, I'm watching House of Cards on Netflix, season 2 and it happens again. Bonobo this time. Strange thing here is that I have been listening to Bonobo for years too, I have had various favourite tracks by them over time but just recently this song-

Bonobo - Kong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3qZxf2Lg-Q

- has become my number one A-rated favourite piece of music. Well over the holiday period at least. I can't really explain why, it's all full of melancholy, drab pacing and eerieness but it has this lovely subtle narrative that makes me feel like I'm listening to someone taking a breath-taking walk. So when it drops in this bar scene in House of Cards I was like, uh, I was alone this time so I paused the show and re-watched the scene to make sure it wasn't just a similar piece of music. I had a desire to make a post on facebook about it, about how strange it was, but I thought better of it. Who cares right? I've met a few people who know of Bonobo and it is a great record, the fact it was my favourite song in the world a few months ago is nothing to write home about.

The last part of the story is what enamoured me to make this post, when I was about 20 or so I met a gentleman called Nat, Nat was a grade 6 and higher accordian player. Strange no? It was an incredible skill and he had a fantastic musical palate, he introduced me to lots of interesting things, some horribly strange things and one thing I still love to this day. He uploaded some songs by a band called Son of Dave to the works music system and I was instantly a fan. It's one guy with a harmonica, a bass drum, a microphone and a loop pedal. Anyway, this is a truly strange facet of the music world. like Jah Wobble or Anal Nathraak, it falls between genres. I think its blues, I don't even really care what it is, for some reason I have always just got on with it. Anyway.

Son of Dave - Shake a Bone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCnG2HwT24g

This is what I find when I type the song into youtube. I have been digesting Breaking Bad this last week or so and this was the last straw. It's the first song on my hip-hop/blues/rhytmn and blues play-list, well its actually second after Devil Take My Soul, which is a much better record. What I was saying, the other songs I could understand but this is just weird. I would never, ever, have thought I would hear this music anywhere but on my Spotify play-list. This time I had no idea what to do, nobody to be shocked and surprised with so I wrote a post about these strange musical happenings.

Also still waiting for my results, I am getting more and more sure I have failed as more people get their results. Ho-hum, heres hoping.

 

Joe 

 

 

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Joseph Jensen, Sunday, 27 Apr 2014, 20:19)
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