No Song is Safe From Us

No Song Is Safe From Us - The NYFOS Blog
 |  Kate Soper

Daffodils, again–bookending the week with everybody’s favorite perennial! This song was a persistent backdrop to my first few months in NYC. Everything in it combines to powerfully suggest the things we can’t communicate: the insistent waves of static harmony, the elusive but urgent text by Pablo Medina (which is here), and the voice, trailing aural phosphenes and finally ebbing away altogether like the impression of light after you close your eyes.




 |  Kate Soper

Tori Amos is a truly captivating performer. Example: I made the mistake of keeping the youtube track running as I was coming up with this intro and quickly forgot how to form words in my brain and type them, as her voice overrode my mental circuits. Amos runs the vocal gamut in Yes Anastasia, which is also quite a compositional feat, positively Schubertian in the cyclical nature of its material.




 |  Kate Soper

The underrated Earl Kim’s setting of Samuel Beckett’s “thither” occurs twice in Now and Then, Kim’s 1981 song cycle for soprano, flute, viola, and harp. At just over 30 seconds, “thither” the song is a haunting shiver, a ghost aria, unforgettable even without the reprise.