Wojciech Kilar - Bram Stoker's Dracula and Other Film Music

One trick to amassing a large music collection is to keep an eye out for bargains. Things like used CDs really stretch your dollar (or whatever your currency happens to be), of course. iTunes has bargains squirrelled away here and there. You just have to dig. For instance, Miles Davis's album Bitches Brew. Over one-and-a-half hours of music. Can't buy the whole album, supposedly, but you can buy each individual track. The thing is, there are only seven tracks on the album. Yep, a double album (remastered, even) for seven bucks. Another great deal is Traffic's title track to The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. It's over eleven minutes long so if you look in that album you'll see you can't buy the track by itself. Oh yeah? If you dig in iTunes a bit, you'll find it for sale. Things like that. One great bargain that caught my eye last week was an album of the work of Polish composer Wojciech Kilar. Best-known in the USA for the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula, I find his music to be wonderful. The only other soundtrack of his usually found here is The Ninth Gate, which I also recommend. To get much deeper than that you have to reach out a bit farther--to his native Poland, for instance (which I have done). This album I found at iTunes, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Other Film Music by Wojciech Kilar, is not just a great deal at $5.99 for an hour's-worth of music, but it is a great introduction to Kilar. Containing selections from Bram Stoker's Dracula, Death and the Maiden, and a movie you've never heard of called König der letzten Tage. Great music by a great composer for a great price and I haven't seen this album available anywhere else. It has been playing in my car all week.

Tori Amos - The Beekeeper

When Tori Amos released her first solo album, Little Earthquakes, back in 1992, I was all over it. A remarkable album, topped by an even more remarkable live performance when I saw her that summer. Her next album, Under the Pink, wasn't as remarkable (no surprise) but still very good. Then came 1996's Boys for Pelé, which I disliked so much that it put me off of Tori Amos for several years. It is only in the past year or two that I have started buying the albums I missed in the interim (it was her creepy cover of Raining Blood that let me know the water was fine again). Which brings us to her latest album, The Beekeper, her strongest since Under the Pink (at least). Gone (for the most part) is the self-conscious quirkiness and excessive self-indulgence (goodness, I'm really heading down the rock critic path of clichés with that one, aren't I?). What we have here is a more consistent album with an emphasis on crafting songs you can sink your teeth into. The first two tracks, Parasol and Sweet the Sting, are as good a place as any to check out. Tori is back in my good graces and I'm oh so happy about it.

Powder - Sonic Machine

This is a fun album. Powder is an L.A. band that is part hard rock and part cabaret (check out the videos from their live shows to see what I mean). No show on the CD, though, so you'll have to make do with the great music on their first album, Sonic Machine (they just released a second album but it's only available in Europe right now). You can't go wrong with catchy, hard rocking songs like Seat of My Pants. I would describe the sound as Missing Persons if they were a hard rock band and were transported twenty years in the future. Oh, I just really dated myself with the Missing Persons reference, didn't I? Well, they're a female-fronted band that rawk, with a bit of quirkiness thrown in for good measure. Check out Up Here for more of what I'm on about.

Little Days - Coming In From Somewhere...

Looking for new music is fun. Actually it's long bouts of frustration punctuated by joy but let's not get bogged down in details. You come across a lot of nice voices. Every so often, though, you come across a voice that makes you sit up. It's not the production or harmonies or overdubs. It's a voice that, when it's on its own, reveals talent to the bone. That's what I heard in Mini Diaz's voice on the Little Days album Coming In From Somewhere... Oh, I love harmonies and overdubs but this was something else. Makes all the digging for new music worth my while, let me tell you. Check out You Make Me Feel and I'm In Love (I'd Say). Can you hear it? How can you not hear it. Combine that special voice with some fine songwriting and restrained production and you have an album you can be proud to tell your friends about. Speaking of proud, Mini and bandmate Jorgen Carlsson are the proud parents of a new baby! That means they are probably more interested in video taping than audio taping right now so a followup album might take some time. I am sure it will be worth the wait.