Brant Lyon & Friends
Beauty Keeps Laying Its Sharp Knife Against Me
© 2008 Brant Lyon (820360131622)
CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.
POEMusic, a highly eclectic collection of contemporary poets/spoken word artists integrating a wide range of musical genres from hard-driving R&B/funk to ambient/soundscape.
tracks
- 1 The Coney Island Break-Up Letters with Hawley Hussey
- 2 Lin Qua Mai with Frank Simone
- 3 Raw Lips Melao with Diana Gitesha Hernandez
- 4 Bab El Bahr
- 5 Bird Frying with E. J. Antonio
- 6 When Her Bluesman Comes to Town with E. J. Antonio
- 7 In My Glee with Diana Gitesha Hernandez
- 8 Sand Niggah from Palestine with Farid Bitar
- 9 General Meditation Camp, Dagshai with A. Cammon & R. Voisey
- 10 In a Hot Country with A.Cammon & R. Voisey
- 11 Silent Meditation Camp, Dagshai with A. Cammon & R. Voisey
- 12 An Indecipherable Knowledge with A. Cammon & R.Voisey
- 13 Children of the African Diaspora with Robin Small-McCarthy
- 14 Beauty Keeps Laying Its Sharp Knife Against Me
- 15 Betty & Barney (1961)
- 16 O! Jericho with Farid Bitar
- 17 A Bass or Two with Diana Gitesha Hernandez
- 18 El Taurino
- 19 Summoning the Spirirts (The Mbira)
try this
albums you will love
genres you will love
By Location
Recommended if you like ...
links
notes
BRANT LYON & FRIENDS: Beauty Keeps Laying Its Sharp Knife Against Me (LOGOchrysalis Productions 2008)
brings poetry / spoken word and music together into a new realm. Call it POEMusic. Eight evocative, provocative, poets perform a wide variety of styles intricately woven with an equally broad range of music genres ranging from hard-driving R&B to blues and jazz, world music, ambient/soundscapes, and more. The listener is beckoned, seduced, or catapulted deeply, delightedly, sometimes unsettlingly and shockingly, into the sound and sense of the poet's world. But always with the incisiveness of a knife called Beauty that cuts to one's core! It may be a lovelorn Fellini-esque romp through the midway of Coney Island, a haunting meditation on love and eternity amid the temples of war-torn Cambodia, meditations on meditation itself in an Indian ashram, an in-your-face rant turning plea for peace between Israel and Palestine, the story of the world’s first reported alien abductees, or a smoky interpretation of what jazz great Charlie Parker's genius might have to do with frying chicken! Throughout it all, no matter how at times far-fetched, love and its corollaries of pain and pleasure infuse the entire collection. It takes its inspiration and title track from the intriguing words of the 14th century Sufi mystic-poet, Hafiz, who declared, “Good poetry makes the universe admit a secret: ‘I am really just a tambourine--play me against your warm thigh!’” Original music by Brant Lyon accompanying his own poems and those of noted poets reciting their own work: Hawley Hussey, Frank Simone, Diana Gitesha Hernandez, E. J. Antonio, Farid Bitar, Anne Cammon (with Rob Voisey), and Robin Small-McCarthy.
"Brant Lyon's musical arrangements are bitchin'!! Wild and soulful."
- Rob Ross, celebrated blues guitarist / songwriter (The Robert Ross Band)
"Brant Lyon has put together an odd match of poems / poets and music in one of the strangest / eclectic music and poetry CDs I have ever encountered."
- Steve Dalachinsky, legendary New York downtown poet
"Brant Lyon & Friends' Beauty Keeps Laying Its Sharp Knife Against Me cooks up a serious cauldron of cosmic soup for the ear. It's a one pot meal for the soul!"
- Carol Lipnik, singer/songwriter (Carol Lipnik & Spookarama)
reviews
Please log in to review this album.
A multicultural tour de force!
author: Joanne McFarland, Poet and Visual ArtistBrant Lyon's CD is a multicultural tour de force that matches global rhythms with global perspectives. I loved the jazz and blues filled trip, the syncopated globetrotting from Coney Island to Cambodia, from Palestine to Mars and back.
BEAUTY KEEPS LAYING ITS SHARP KNIFE AGAINST ME
author: Gary CorseriThis is music and sound in relation to words as light relates to a gem. What a cornucopia of sounds, mastery of technique, variety and unity--fusion! This is how to "do" poetry now. Mr. Lyon has assembled a perfect cast of 8 excellent poets (including himself), allowed each to emote and think through his/her performance so every nuance of speech is captured and filled with meaning; then created the best sounds and music to undergird and lift the spirit of the presentation. He has found, in every instance, the most sensible and memorable way to work with each artist individually, then burnished the collective achievement. I'm humbled by the versatility of the performers, the wizzardry of the digital keyboard. A strong note of thanks, too, to J Armen at J. Armen Studios, NYC, for his consummate recording, mixing and mastering skills. Here's a rich melange of sounds that tours the landscape of imagination: from Coney Island barkers, to temples in Cambodia; muezzins in the Middle East, Charlie Bird Parker in the jazz rhythm of the heart. Here's work that pays homage, saluting Hafiz, for example, yet lets each artist revel in his/her own space--meditatively, humorously, sensually, politically. This is consciousness-raising at its best, shooting darts of thought into the heart, darts of feeling into the mind. It shows what the art of the spoken word can be. I am more certain now that there is a veritable "movement" in New York, as keen as the Beats were in the 50s and Dylan and the folksingers were in the 60s. This is a CD worthy of its title; one that captures our Zeitgeist.
A Unique Listening Experience
author: Yvette RadermanBrant Leon's CD is a unique listening experience. It transports the listener into alternative landscapes that spark creative flight within. The poetry is flawless and the music imaginative and delightful. The combination of both poetry and music is not to be missed.