Every week, CKUA’s hosts submit their songs for our weekly House Blend playlist: an exciting new release, a beloved classic or just an old personal favourite. We mix it all together to create a sonic concoction that’ll help kick off your week. Check out what’s on this week’s playlist.
The Playlist
The Picks
Bob Chelmick: Ben Sures, “Everybody Matters”
Originally on the 2011 album, Gone to Bolivia, this lively number resurfaces on the ambitious new ‘live’ session recorded at Edmonton’s Yardbird Suite in March 2016. Ben’s new jazzy arrangement with some top-drawer players gives it new life. BTW: This song was written a few years before the Black Lives Matter movement and should NOT spark political consternation.
AND Baba also picked Ben Sures, “Everybody Matters”
Ben Sures has gone and re-imagined his more familiar songs, in a live setting with a full brass ensemble. Works. And because “Everybody Matters”!
Orest Soltykevych: London Philharmonic, Carl Davis, “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copland
For the 1942-43 season, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra commissioned patriotic fanfares from ten American composers. Aaron Copland wrote this next work and it was further popularized by Emerson, Lake and Palmer in the late ’70s.
Mark Antonelli: Bat For Lashes, “Horse And I”
You’ve got to love a song so steeped in atmosphere. It begins with a crackling fire followed by harpsichord and even theremine-like sounds. Looking at the lyrics, it seems to almost be a re-telling of an old myth or legend about a Chosen One and her battle horse. As she says: “Horse and I, we’re dancers in the dark”. An intriguing listen, to be sure. I wonder what it’s all about?
Tony King: Arctic Monkeys, “One Point Perspective”
Wow, Alex Turner shares dividends from time spent in Los Angeles holed up in an apartment with a piano in the adjacent room from where he slept. The effect of sunshine on the Englishman triggered a creative spark. He composed songs for the entire work that would eventually become Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, while tucked away on the west coast. A trippy montage of liquid lounge spiked with just enough Aldus Huxley, the new album from Arctic Monkeys could solidify Alex Turner’s place as Elvis Costello’s heir!
Amy van Keeken: Bill Callahan, “Javelin Unlanding”
Bill Callahan is coming to Alberta on September 26 in Calgary at the Bella Concert Hall. Needless to say, I am pumped. Let’s all review his catalogue over the summer to prepare for the concert. His albums are otherworldly, yet grounded. Each song is a world of its own and each song is so good. “Javelin Unlanding” is from his 2013 masterpiece, Dream River.
Grant Stovel: Angelique Kidjo, “Once in a Lifetime”
Revered African music artist Angelique Kidjo says she was greatly struck by this album when it first came out. She was a young woman studying in Paris and was blown away by the world of music that was all around her — stuff she’d never heard growing up in Benin. She was particularly struck by the Talking Heads’ 1980 album, Remain in Light. It was partly the African influence that caught her ear, but always the timeless, borderless humanity of the songs. It has stuck with her ever since. This is her brand-new, album-length reinterpretation of that classic LP.
Cathy Ennis: Nickodemus, “A Long Engagement”
I love the whole album, but this track is instantly accessible, danceable and a great mood elevator after a long winter and a weird summer-like spring. Let’s break out summer! I find New York DJ Nickodemus’ “A Long Engagement” and this track, “Livin’ Your Dream”, very engaging, indeed!