I thought a lot about what I would put into my first music post, so I decided to focus on a new CD I heard last week! I love to go to Minneapolis' Central Library down at the bottom of Nicollet Avenue and search for new and interesting albums. While I was looking at the instrumental music, I came across a very interesting looking CD cover with the words "Hurdy-Gurdy" and "Prototyp" on the front. Usually when I can't tell which is the band name and which is the name of the CD I put it back, but it looked interesting, and I couldn't remember the last time I heard a hurdy gurdy. The hurdy gurdy is more or less a mechanical violin, where the strings are "played" by a wheel underneath them while a keyboard on the side changes the strings' pitches. Here's a picture explaining the different parts:
When I got home, I slid it into my macbook and listened. It seemed completely electronic underneath the almost bagpipe-ish sound of the melodies! But when I read the CD jacket, the group (whose name IS Hurdy-Gurdy it turns out) said all the sounds on the CD were made organically from the sounds their hurdy gurdies made. If you get a chance, you have to check it out. Here's a youtube video of Stefan Brisland-Ferner from Hurdy-Gurdy playing "Delirium" from the Prototyp album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alnVExbQYCwHave fun, and check in again soon!
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1 comment:
See this made me think of a cool band name, inspired by ancient instruments and the space age: Mars Antiqua. Everybody I asked in the van though compared it to the Mars Volta, which is a good band, but I was thinking Ars Antiqua. Oh, well. A geek's work is never done...
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