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

[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.