Sacd round up - Rachmaninov

Sometimes it takes a short length of time for a whole series of recording to emerge complete and sometimes it can be a matter of years and that's before we hit the dead ends when a conductor dies mid way through.Sometimes in such instances a chosen successor steps in, more often than not it just stops.

Strangely enough we've just finished this three sacd (or HD download) Rachmaninov symphony series with his first, recorded around October last year and issued early this month.

Played by the reinvigorated since 2018 Sinfonia of London orchestra under the direction of the Gateshead, Northern English conductor John Wilson this like all the discs comes with shorter works before moving on the main symphony which is extremely well played, more than match for classic accounts from the 1970's and 80's.

Issued in 2023 but recorded in 2022, we got the second symphony.

It all began with the third symphony but the whole project was delayed by Covid and indeed this was recorded until September 2021 when conditions improved to point people could play close to each other which makes a big difference to sound (and I'd maintain the feel of a performance by taking your clues from each other).

These play on all cd player having a regular cd layer in addition to the super audio cd layer a dedicated player can read for higher quality reproduction.

Kicking it down the yard

The cooler spell returns here after the last ten days or so so we're not flagging - well apart from the consequences of being up to see Austria win Eurovision 2025 although I wasn't viewing so much as I find flashing lights make me very ill - so we'll be tuned in by the time I have written this for this years WSL FA Cup between Chelsea and Manchester United.

Let's say that's what I follow, had been much good on my feet I'd of been down to the park to play just like modern girls in these parts do and that's what I love about today whereas if you'd of asked for a game back in the day you'd of been told "Girls can't play football" which was a nonsense but was all about keeping advantages for boys and men.

Of course it could work the other way and that was wrong too.

If you have the ability and are prepared to put the effort in, why shouldn't you follow what interests you just because someone has sex based issues?

Anyway Chelsea won 3-0! Way to go.

Those missed first time around...

1986 was the year of the National Garden Festival at Etruria not far from here down the A500 "D" Road, it was just over two and half years since the launch of ILR radio here with Signal Radio based in Shelton where before I listened mainly to Beacon Radio based in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton who played more contemporary music than the local BBC station and had specialist shows covering a variety of music.

It was a rather mixed era when came to music formats as I had cubes of records, shelves of tapes and the first few of what was to become a large cd library and there was no real order as to which artists or titles were in any.

Getting anything resembling that was to take years. 

The Pet Shop Boys had come to my attention the year before via a track on a music magazine free flexidisc that featured a track by them and a compilation cassette and by the time I was inclined to buy their first album, Please, I'd gotten a cd player and so what was originally planned as a XDR tm tape purchase  became the cd bought from John Menzies in Newcastle Under Lyme.

Unlike some artists I didn't get the vinyl singles so recently I picked up the original UK lp version so I can play Opportunities, West End Girls and Love Comes Quickly on the much improved vinyl set up.

I did get Actually direct on cd although I had to save up for it as I was a bit short on money at the time but the album art just works better in lp size jackets.

This was the home of It's A Sin, What Have I Done To Deserve This that featured Dusty Springfield and Rent to which I had the Smash Hits posts with lyrics of.

There was a special imported version that had the 12" of Always On My Mind you could get but as didn't get around to it, the regular UK vinyl will suffice and in any event sounds just great.

Although Actually is an all digital recording the vinyl edition does sound fuller on my system to the cd.

Enter May, server down

Another month and we're in late Spring with last week being jolly hot until friday so layers were off, much liquid consumed and windows opened here.

It was an odd week for Fur Affinity as it was down with technical issues and is currently down as they need to reinstall the database and doing that checking everything is as it should be is taking time but is best done properly.

That of course meant no journals with blog links on site and comments, one reason I hung around Discord more than usual apart from concerns about one persons welfare.

 

Discourse around what girls *should* wear especially in regressive/re-enactment  contexts do really try my patience, especially of the "everything should be like it was xx years ago" nature cos there were very good reasons why we progressed as I recall female staff demanding the right to wear trousers at school and to basically do whatever you personally liked rather than saying in effect "Can I do this as a girl?".

So today we wear what we feel comfortable in, we work in fields that match our abilities not gender expectations and play whatever games or take part in sporting endeavours we wish and that's how I approach things personally.

You can understand people not being personally comfortable with some sorts of presentation when may remind them of things best forgotten but as someone whoes worst enemies tended to wear grey skirts and white socks I sometimes wonder if they consider how I might feel when they're being somewhat prescriptive about what to wear.

 Given like most girls today I've embraced change and like football for females it was hardly surprising that in my uniform are big girls sports shorts, designed for females fitting very well.

The world I'm around may be in 2025 even when my head is still in the 70's and 80's but I'm a modern girl at heart with a much fuller notion of what a girl is than some others.