Miles Davis: Agharta (1975)

Where does a listener start when it comes to the “electric period” of Miles Davis? Where does the “electric period” even begin? Miles and the second quintet were using electric instruments as far back as Miles In The Sky (a personal favorite) but it seems like most folks peg it at the ambient, rolling atmosphere of In A Silent Way (another favorite). Where listeners start, though, is another matter. For me it was unfortunately with Pangaea, a live set from Japan that at age 17 I was not prepared for. Had I only started with that same date’s afternoon set, the brilliantly funky Agharta, I might have more quickly embraced this side of Davis’s career instead of retreating back to the early 60s for much of my 20s and 30s.

ChrisOctober 29, 2025October 29, 2025Leave a comment

Miscellany, Playlists

52 Reasons Why

Wanted to do something different today. It’s my birthday, and I already built a playlist last week celebrating a bunch of great music that came out during the year of my birth. But the music of 1973 isn’t what made me into who I am now – that’s an ever-growing, ever-evolving store of musical moments and memories. And so I wanted to make another playlist, of the songs that inspired me, moved, me, marked significant moments of my life.

ChrisJune 4, 2025June 4, 20252 Comments

Miscellany

Consuming in 2024: My Favorite Music

Finally. As of this morning you can listen to my buddy Dan and I wax rhapsodic about our favorite non-metal albums of 2024 wherever you get your podcasts, which means it’s time to finally get down to bees-niss and sum up the year in new music. I already recapped most of the metal selections in my various (Un)Focused Definition playlists, and of course you can hit the “best of 2024” tag to read the reviews for many of them regardless of genre. We’ll use a lot of same categories I used back in 2021, and add a few more to talk about the stuff that wasn’t completely reviewed here on the site. Let’s get to it below the jump.

ChrisJanuary 19, 2025January 20, 20253 Comments

a picture of the records, CDs, and cassettes I either bought or came in over Labor Day weekend, 2024

Cassette, CD, Miscellany, Vinyl

It Was A Good Haul (Labor Day Edition)

I’m starting to think through what comes next after wrapping up my Flower Kings series (should be done this week), and make sure it doesn’t interfere with the other big series I have coming up – that’s the 11th annual Hooptober marathon over on Letterboxd, where an ever-increasing amount of folks band together over the course of late September into October watching way too many horror films based on a set of strict rules. My list is here, and I expect to summarize my reviews here to make up for the lack of consistent content until the marathon wraps up on Halloween. And so I looked over at my carefully arranged futon at all the vinyl records, cassettes, and CDs that came in and, uh…yeah. I’m pretty well sorted for the next month or so.

ChrisSeptember 3, 2024September 10, 2024Leave a comment

Vinyl

Miles Davis: Jack Johnson (1971)

A quick one as I prepare to leave for the weekend (which means no review tomorrow…I’m okay with that). Miles Davis has always been a towering figure for me in music: he was my gateway into jazz, and his evolution served as touchpoint for my own growth as a listener. The connection to his music is even stronger now that my son joined his schools jazz ensemble and in what is now his 7th year playing trumpet opted to get his own for Christmas. So we’ve been exploring the man’s work, and today as we drove to school I put on Jack Johnson to show Davis’s skill at improvising over a repeated lick, and his use of a mute, which my son is also starting to utilize.

ChrisJanuary 6, 2023Leave a comment

Vinyl

Miles Davis: Live-Evil (1971)

You can say someone is your favorite artist or musician, but in the case of someone like Frank Zappa or, in this instance Miles Davis, it’s near impossible to be well versed in every aspect of their discography. How do you gain a level of understanding broad and deep enough to qualify/quantify the man is your favorite when there are literally troves of live, alternate, and side performances to sift through? I often find myself settling back to the 10 or so “home base” recordings that solidified my love for Davis, but the beauty of someone with as many records as he has is the joy of returning to less tread waters, exploring albums you’re not nearly as familiar or comfortable with. Hence Live-Evil, which ironically was the first Miles I found and purchased on vinyl.

ChrisApril 12, 2022October 29, 2025Leave a comment

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Tag: miles davis