Rare Recordings and Rare Items  »   White Session 1999

I was just listening to Brendan's White Session on Radio France from 1999 and was wondering if someone has a better quality recording of it than I, and would be willing to share it in this forum. I have it as a 192kbps mp3 (size 54.6MB) and it is not the best quality (there is hiss & distortion from the radio broadcast).

Needless to say, the music on it is great...

Cheers,

George.

Where is George's version to be found?

Where Brendan's music is concerned, there is always a wait involved.

Good luck with the exam, Sas.

Stick that session on DIME when you get the chance. I can do it for you if you don't want the hassle.

Thanks, George.

The music is, of course, fantastic. This recording of it sounds all right, but it's a pretty bad encoding, as there's absolutely nothing there above 13,000 Hz. In other words, a lot of the higher frequencies have been lost.

It would definitely be nice to have this in higher quality.

Saskia, good luck on the exam! I just finished taking the two semesters of A&P, and they can be brutal. The only thing that at all saved me was having worked in the medical field for fifteen years.

Yes - one of the two banes of medical study. The other being Organic Chemistry, which has been known to send people screaming down the street. :)

Guys, thank you for your encouragement. Since I've survived my exam (it went well! ;)!! I am now uploading the White Sessions, so keep an eye on this thread, as I will post the download link asap! ;)

My congrats Saskia! :)

Many thanks Saskia for the flac file, which is downloading as I write.

I also found the recordings from radio Aligre. Anyone interested??

Yes, please!!

George.

The quality's definitely better in your version, Saskia, but it's also clearly from the same source.

Thanks very much for posting this. Are you planning to upload it to DIME? If not, do you mind if I share it there? I'll credit you, of course.

This really is a beautiful recording. The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove has a completely different sound, Can You Feel It appears in canonical form and gives us the prototype for This Boy a decade later and Chase The Blues sounds even better here than the KCRW session version.

The highlight, however, must surely be the studio recording of Brendan's rendition of Song To The Siren. I like Tim Buckley, but This Mortal Coil's cover with Liz Fraser's vocals has always been the more haunting and gut-wrenching to me. Brendan's performance of it here, however, is probably the best I've ever heard. Absolutely fantastic.

It's funny that a lot of this stuff has received such low distribution, even though it's more than 10 years old.

Of course, few people were digitising their collection back then, so it does require someone to transfer the material from an old medium and then properly encode it.

Saskia, can you tell me anything about the lineage of this recording? By that, I mean what medium did you transfer it from? CDr? And do you know anything about the equipment that was used to record it from the radio?

Such details are useful when one encounters other copies of a recording, because they aid in determining whether one is looking at two versions from the same source or two different sources. For example, of two audience recordings, one may have been recorded from a different position or with better microphones. Of FM recordings, one may have had better reception and be less scratchy, or be a more complete broadcast than the other.

I'd love to get this without the FM static scratchiness. I wonder whether Brendan has a pre-FM master of this.

I needed that after the car accident I had yesterday (no one was hurt).

Don't tell me you were in a delirius state listening to Ark when it happened?! ;)

I would like to add to Ian's comments that the White Session, the KCRW radio session & the ICA concert should be essential listening for every Brendan Perry fan. A big hug to Saskia for your dedication & your generosity in making two of the above available on this forum!!

I'd love to get this without the FM static scratchiness. I wonder whether Brendan has a pre-FM master of this.

I second that.

George.

I was never very fond of that blues sort of aspect of Brendan... That acoustic-guitar-based/Tim-Buckley-related type.

Yet, can you not see how this "acoustic-guitar-based" aspect has led to the artistic triumph that was the "Ark" tour? For one thing, it has helped to "melt" the cold formalism that was so often at the core of the DCD music. Now Brendan's music has a balance of heart & mind (and the same can be said of Lisa Gerrard's).

George.

No, I can't, simply because it was always there; it did not just occur to him during the "Eye of the Hunter" era. I wouldn't encounter it as some form of artistic evolution, because stuff like Tim Buckley, Scott Walker and Joy Division can be heard/sensed since DCD's day one. It's more of a back-flip to me, a return to his roots - still brilliant and beautiful, of course.
There is no such thing as "cold formalism" in DCD music.
Oh, and I do not believe Brendan's music EVER lacked heart&mind.

And Lisa's work is getting lousier with each album.

Thanks Saskia.

Can you also upload the Radio Aligre when you get a chance?

Thank you.

I am glad too. You'd better include Ark in your insurance policy ;)

Can you also upload the Radio Aligre when you get a chance?

I've decided to treat you guys on old treasures once in a while... that is, if you're good, of course! ;) Stay tuned!

Thank you, Saskia. I've downloaded it and will listen when I get back from holiday.

thanks :)

Here is the Radio Aligre broadcast as a 320kbps mp3. Enjoy!

George

Can anybody tell me, what is the song at the half of the Radio Aligre broadcast? It sounds like a Dead Can Dance song...very good. What's the name of the band? Orange blossom?

Yesssss! You are great! Thank you!

http://www.last.fm/music/Love+Is+Colder+Than+Death/_/Saaidi

from their album entitled ATOPOS (1999).

The Radio Aligre version of 'Pry for dawn' was taken from an unofficial live (bootleg) called 'Gothic spleens'...but this version is available on a lot of bootlegs.

this song was played in 1990 for the very first time (Koln, Gurzenich, 25/10/1990)