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Baker's Dozen

Taking Stock: Colleen's Favourite Albums
Jude Rogers , May 12th, 2021 08:58

In this week's Baker's Dozen, Colleen (aka Cécile Schott) takes Jude Rogers on a journey through her musical life, from car tapes to heartbreak, taking in Arthur Russell, Love, Low, GZA, The Green Arrows and much more along the way.

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Various Artists – Éthiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969–1974
The first song on that record by Mulatu, 'Yèkèrmo Sèw', is also from 1969. I heard that on another cool radio station in Paris, and it's another example of a song where I can picture myself in a specific place at a specific time just stopping whatever I was doing, rushing to the tape recorder and taping it, thinking, 'My God, what is that? This is so beautiful'.

I was lucky, because I was able to borrow the compilation straight away from the music library, and then little-by-little, I started to borrow the entire series as it was being released. From there on, I branched out into other African musics, including much more traditional music from field recordings. I also got into all sorts of non-Western types of music, and I was obsessed with the gamelan for a long time. The odd thing, also being in Paris, was that I was able to go to Indian music concerts at an incredible Asian arts museum called Musée Guimet. But I've chosen this as an example of how mind-blowing and mind-opening it was to listen to non-Western musics in terms of my own approach to composing.