Shark's Ultimate Music Research Corner

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Gargantua & Pantagruel come to life! The entire classic era oeuvre of the British progressive rock titans Gentle Giant, founded by the three Schulman brothers in 1970, is indeed the perfect musical embodiment of the cheerful Rabelaisian spirit, colorful and picturesque as a fancy miniature from a manuscript, brought to life by the moving nature of the sound. Founded on the wreck of an unsuccessful and now totally forgotten soul-influenced

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Sounds and impacts only like itself, like no-one before or after. An attempt to achieve in 80 minutes a mystery trip from light to darkness and return. Three months recording with sessions often lasting up to 16 hours a day. Telepathic improvisation leading to instant compositions. Shamanic avant-funk trance. Unrestrained ecstasy and weirdness. Beauty and violation of any sense of beauty. Fear danger chaos mystery magic lost and found. Ja

With Understanding Comes Appreciation The first time I listened to Tom Waits, which was randomly from a radio station btw, I thought that I had missed a song or an album made by one of my fav artists of all-time; the peerless, a blues belter straight out of the school of Howlin' Wolf, a cat who breathed and bathed in the free jazz of Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, a painter and sculptor by nature, a rock and roll titan as leader and frontman; the one and only Captain Beefhe

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Some of the words that arguably describe better this gem might be elegant, sophisticated, intimate, melancholic, spiritual, playful, desert, warm, and mysterious, which also sports majestically chamber jazz, avant-garde classical music, klezmer and modern composition. For a man who's arguably got 90% of his reputation (at this point, in 1996) through making noisy, abrasive, inaccessible, and chaotic music, this masterpiece is quite the op

With Understanding Comes Appreciation “Fast and bulbous! That's right, The Mascara Snake, fast and bulbous! Also, a tin teardrop! Bulbous also tapered? That's right” —Pena, Track 15. I wanted to start with this quote, because it is a classic dialog among fans, which shows a sort of camaraderie and a “sense of belonging” when you start exchanging this apparently “nonsense," specially with another unknown fan. Knowing the latter, somehow says that you are “special” and “belong”

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Tony Williams' Emergency is flavored with post-bop and jazz-instrument elements, which pushed into new territory, creating dense, adventurous and unpredictable soundscapes; Miles Davis’ Silent Way is the signature of his electric era; nuanced with trumpet jazz and avant-garde, dig deep into the heart of the ethereal groove —dark, smoky, and ashen; while Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats is the album which fully fuses compositional sophistication of