Map of a Blue City Listening Party
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Map of a Blue City Listening Party

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music

Today at 2 a.m. Japan Standard Time, I attended the listening party for my guitar hero Marc Ribot's new album on Bandcamp. The album is titled Map of a Blue City. Marc Ribot himself, along with hundreds of fans from all over the world, enjoyed listening to and chatting about songs from the album. I sent some messages, too. I was extremely happy to be able to express my feelings to him in real time, even though my English wasn’t very good because I was busy listening. I couldn’t catch most of the lyrics, but there were a lot of messages praising them, so I’m really looking forward to the album arriving — I ordered a special edition copy on opaque blue vinyl.

Marc is a guitarist and has only seldom sung on any of his recordings, but I’ve always loved his vocals. Of course, I adore other skilled and talented singers’ voices, but Marc’s has a different charm; someone described his vocals as plaintive and wise. This album is his first to feature his vocals and was recorded over a span of 30 years, capturing moments from then until now. I learned this from a New Musical Express article, and I was super excited. My expectations were extremely high, but the album easily surpassed them.

Marc is basically a guitarist with strong originality, but on this album, his guitar playing is simpler than usual, perfectly matching his intimate and heartfelt vocals. If you’re interested, check out the live version of one of the songs from this album.

I couldn’t sleep for a few hours after the listening party because I was too wound up, so I’ve been pretty sleepy at work today.

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