I was just chilling on a Sunday afternoon, listening to both albums by Christine & The Queens.
It’s been a struggle to fit my Aeolus into my headphone rotation, because it never clicked with me, but after several weeks of not being used, I tried it today on my current setup (Roon → Yggy → Nautilus) and it sounds like magic.
I was pretty late to the Christine & The Queens party, and only discovered her through the season 2 finale of Better Things (FX TV show). For fans of Better Things, I’ve included that video at the bottom. If you haven’t watched Better Things, I’d recommend listening to the songwhip link instead of watching the video (but then stream the whole series on Hulu), because otherwise you’ll be wondering why I’m asking you to watch a bunch of people who don’t know how to dance.
It’s always a surprise to me when you listen to some gear you’ve not heard for some day’s or week’s. It’s more often than not a very positive experience too.
Sometimes though giving your ears a few days rest can also do wonders. Once the hearing has been revitalised your music can get back that oomph that you miss sometimes through overuse of said hearing.
I hope this makes sense as it an early morning ramble an sleep still clouds my mind.
That makes a lot of sense. It’s the same with music, at least for me.
In the past, I’ve listened to a new album and disliked it so much I regretted buying it. After putting it away for a few weeks/months, I’ve picked it up out of curiosity and it sounded wonderful.
I want to share two favorites of mine, in large part because I only recently discovered Nesrine and she reminds me of one of my all time favorite vocalists of any genre, Lhasa de Sela. Lhasa died of cancer in 2010 and the world was robbed too soon of another genius. These two artists share this crazy level of inflection that comes from the microtonal nuance in pitch and the way they vocalize into their syllabic consonants and diphthongs is just enthralling (not being geeky, listen!). Every phrase these women sing has me on the edge of my seat listening for the next little bit of nuance that is the most subtle of improvisation and ornament. They both sing in at least 3-4 different languages also, like poets. I encourage you to search them on your platform of choice and cease all other activity for 4-5 minutes. Happy listening.
“Te Quería” is an immaculate groove. The way Lido Pimienta’s voice floats atop the swirl of notes from a warble of wind instruments and a patter of congas and steel drums is irresistible.
Great album with great vocals and an interesting arrangement. Released about a year before her death; I was very interested to hear their new material.
They have a slightly different flavor than most pop artists here, due to use of melisma, but there are many good/distinctive female artists in the pop-folk genres of the Balkans. Anelia, Desi Slava, Djena, Emanuela, Preslava, Roksana, Tsvetelina Yaneva, and Galena are some of my favorite Bulgarian ladies in this genre, who are all still going strong in '24…
She only has two albums out, “Expectations” and “Mantras”. Read her backstory first (to really appreciate the lyrics and the stories she has to tell) and then start with “Expectations”.
