this music brought to you by the letter s

[ontology]

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

charismitaine  assigned me S.

strange things - abigail washburn & the sparrow quartet.
   In April I saw Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet play at Merlefest; it was hands down the best concert I have seen in an age. This was the first new song I heard them play: I had to remind my heart to keep beating. I want to call it "apocalyptic". Or possibly "an unholy marriage between Appalachian gospel and a string quartet". Two banjos, a violin, a cello, and Miss Washburn's incredibly versatile voice.

the swell season - the swell season.
   One of my favourite instrumentals -- this one you can nearly taste. It's autumn somewhere in Europe, long ago, and trees are leaning over a lake. Maybe you're looking out of the window, maybe you're dancing so slowly and listening to the time-worn floorboards creak beneath your feet. Piano, guitar, violin, cello: magic.

shadowland - sarah slean.
   As I mentioned in my review of The Baroness, I wish this had been the closing song rather than the penultimate: it sounds like the end of the story, the denouement after the final epiphany, and it's achingly lovely. Love, the only alchemy / Love, the killer of despair / Love, the true nobility / Love, the armour angels wear

scars - hannah fury.
   This is a far-away spooky gently disquieting haunted wood reworking of "Scarborough Fair". Lovely.

say it to me now - glen hansard.
   So, I totally did buy my dad the soundtrack to Once for Father's Day, and he loves it, and I'm so glad! This song is a testament to the power of simplicity -- one voice and one guitar carrying so much emotion and so much range, sort of as if Patty Griffin's Living With Ghosts was recorded by an Irish bloke.

Comments

[take-a-sadsong.livejournal.com]

Oh, I want to do this! Is it really honestly legal to upload music? :D I would definitely do this though. Assign me a letter! ;)

(Also, I'm wretchedly sorry, but can I be awful and ask which of the songs you uploaded are Christian? House rules and all! :P)

By the way, the only links working are the third and the fifth. ;)

This is a lovely idea! :D

-Hannah

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Fixed the links, thanks for the head's up. I have no idea what was going on there, except that LJ seems to do it to me every time I post music.

Technically it is legal to upload single songs for sampling purposes. :)

Well...Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet are sort of Christian. That is, they play a lot of spirituals and hymns, and Abigail Washburn has mentioned her faith in interviews, though I'm not sure how orthodox she is...

A letter, hmm: L!

[take-a-sadsong.livejournal.com]

So I just realized now it's impossible to get files off iTunes and upload them to the net, right? -facepalm-

I don't have an mp3 converter on my computer that I know of. Is it possible to upload them any other way? :/

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by getting files off iTunes and uploading them? Did you buy them on iTunes? Or can you just not figure out how to access the files to upload? Or are they in .m4a format? iTunes used to have an .mp3 converter built in, but I think the newer versions got rid of that. If they're .m4as, don't worry about it; so long as they're not protected (i.e. iTunes makes it impossible for anyone but you to play them) because you bought them on iTunes, anyone who has iTunes can play them. If they are protected, burning them to CD and then re-ripping them onto the computer gets rid of that, though I don't know if you want to go to that much trouble. :)

[take-a-sadsong.livejournal.com]

I was able to change the song format to mp3, but I don't know how to access them on my computer when I go to upload on mediafire. I tried exporting, but when I went to upload, it turned them into text documents, so I don't think that's it.

So, basically, my question is: on mediafire's uploader, how do you get to the actual song files?

[last-archangel.livejournal.com]

Ooh, assign me a letter, please!

Also, much to my sadness, the Hannah Fury link does not work.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

All the links work now; I'm not sure what was going on there. :p

How about...E!

[vana-tuivana.livejournal.com]

Ooh, do me, do me.

I have totally been on a music-collection-expanding adventure lately. These songs look absolutely lovely (and I'm sure will sound even lovelier once I have downloaded them); thank you!

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Yay, music! Let me see: M!

[everydayjoy.livejournal.com]

Delicious! I would love a letter!

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

I!

[everydayjoy.livejournal.com]

*I*? That'll be a fun challenge! You're on!

[airys1.livejournal.com]

I would love a letter as well please...I shall do it as soon as I can figure out this mediafire-type thing..

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

C!

[airys1.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, figured it out and everything, thanks!

[such_heights]

Snagging all of these (save the Sarah Slean, which I got from avendya recently and is love), and might I please have a letter?

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Hmm...F!

[charismitaine.livejournal.com]

Ooh *downloads everything* Hurray!

I would like another letter, please! (perhaps I should just do a big post for the entire alphabet....)

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, perhaps a challenge: Y!

[bornofstars.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I downloaded Strange Things. Thank you!

I know what you mean about The Swell Season; it has such a lilting, autumnal beauty. And Shadowland is very lovely, yes.

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Heh, for once I already have almost all of these songs. And there is something about this list that really ought to have more in common than the letter, like a mix or something, 'cause...I don't know, they just sort of go together well, at least by...tonal quality? The fact that they're all sort of folk-alternative? I don't really know.

Also you should be glad to know that I got myself "Strange Things" on my recent--and third--eMusic go-round, and it took a few listens to grow on me, but now I heart it. It sort of reminds me of CocoRosie's "Terrible Angels," which is weird, because they have...absolutely nothing in common.