“Excuses” – The Morning Benders Yours Truly session

We’ve been quiet for a week or so – projects, family, sickness – in no particular order. With some of these still ongoing – here’s a wonderful piece of music and video that I can’t stop listening to. A live version of their song Excuses by The Morning Benders.

Thank you to my brother Richard for hipping me to this ;-)

I’d heard a few spins of their other track “Promises” that is now featured over on Pitchfork – it’s got a killer guitar hook that you won’t forget - but I was blown away by this version of Excuses. What I love is the sheer musicality and joy that is present in the room.

In a time where production and story is everything

– where the brand is more important than the band –

watching a bunch of musicians create something so pleasing to listen to and watch – well – that’s why I’m in this game.

Excuses and promises are both on their latest release Big Echo which I bought through eMusic – but you can also find on iTunes and all the usual suspects. Strangely enough they’re using topspin widgets but not TopSpin’s ecommerce – which seems pretty odd to me – but then – what do I know!

The Morning Benders website

Christopher Chu (Vox) on Twitter

The Morning Benders on Facebook

Music Recommendation - Craig Urquhart

Another musician who's music we are currently listening to is composer/pianist Craig Urquhart. Craig not only produces beautiful instrumental piano pieces, but he's also a believer that music is helpful to human beings, which is one of the premises on which music2work2 is built.

According to Craig each composition reflects the healing power of music and nature as well as the emotional journeys of life. His songs are relaxing, soothing, solo piano pieces - have a listen to my current favorite "Venetian Snowfall:" click the player below and you'll be taken to the track page on Last.fm

Listening to this piece, I can envision snowflakes swirling around, some big, some small. As the snow covers trees, grass, roads, rooftops, everything is transformed into a beautiful, pure, glistening, snow-covered picture. Although snow has always been a problem for me – difficulty getting around in the snow – I think it is nature at it's most glorious.

You can visit Craig's website at http://www.craigurquhart.com, where he sells his 9 CDs through CDBaby. Apparently he has a new CD coming out to be released in late February.

Craig Urquhart has a history filled with recognitions and successes - I hope you like his music as much as we do.

Brett Juilly - music2work2 Recommendation

While browsing Last.fm recently, I came across the music of Brett Juilly. His music is also instrumental and piano driven. I listened to all 18 tracks on his album Piano and can say that I enjoyed them all. There were a couple of tracks that I particularly like, The Dance, being one.

The Dance - Brett Juilly

The Dance is an interesting song in that it almost sounds like two different pieces. It starts of with a light, lilting melody with quite a fast tempo and then about a minute in, the entire sound and feel of the piece changes. It slows down and becomes much fuller with a mellower tone. The piece ends with a few of the higher pitched, lilting notes like the beginning, tying the two parts together, it sticks with you and leaves you wanting to hear more.

Brett states that his music is visual; when listening to this song, the image evoked for me by the first part is that of a ballet dancer; there is a happy feeling. When the song changes, so does the image and feeling. I get a feeling of disappointment; perhaps the ballet dancer is no longer able to dance. The mood is not one of sadness but of acceptance and hope.

One of the things about last.fm is that you can only listen to a track three times - before the paywall comes down - and I so wanted to get into this track - that I ended up buying it - I guess that's the new music economy!

Last.fm lists Juilly as an artist similar to music2work2. The beautiful instrumental melodies with their soothing, relaxing quality are an asset found in some of the music of both.