Singleversity #30

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 88.

MA:













Ordinarily, Michael would be writing here... But he's without Internet again (A running theme for Audiversity recently), so I'm taking his place with this bit from Chinese actress and singer Zhou Xuan. "The Winds of May" isn’t in FLAC here, but the Shanghai starlet did all of her recordings during the gramophone era and performed live when she wasn’t having nervous breakdowns in between failed marriages and illegitimate children. She died at only 39 in 1957 in a mental institution, but her music qualifies as Mandarin golden oldies.

PM:



For whatever reason, Blogger was giving me fits these past two days. Here at last is something solid for you: Turing Machine's 2000 album A New Machine for Living was one of the band's finest; this video for "Swiss Grid" (filmed in Switzerland) is one of the few visual accompaniments they made aside from the live show. Frenchman Didier Feldmann lulls you into a trance, then accelerates the pace, then slows again as the song draws to a conclusion. Not unlike the band's excellently crafted music, then.