Daily Drops Vol.059 — May 31 週日交給古典：一部美國歌劇，和 Lankum 那人的蓋爾語咒

National Symphony Orchestra / Gianandrea Noseda — Barber: Vanessa

Genre類型

Classical / American Opera / Live

Label廠牌

National Symphony Orchestra (Kennedy Center)

Format介質

2 SACD / Hi-Res

Released發行

2026-05-29

It is easy to forget that the United States produced exactly one opera that holds the repertory the way the European warhorses do, and that it won the Pulitzer in 1958. Vanessa is a Gothic chamber piece about a woman who has spent twenty years waiting at a mirror for a lover who arrives, when he finally does, in the form of his own son. Noseda uses the tightened three-act revision and records it live in the Kennedy Center, which is the whole point: nothing here is buffed smooth in a studio, and you can hear the orchestra fretting and surging underneath the long monologues. Heaston is the title figure; Bridges, as the genuinely sympathetic Erika, walks off with the evening. American post-Romanticism that sounds like Strauss caught in a New England snowstorm. 這是 Barber 唯一一部進入保留劇目的歌劇，1958 年拿了普立茲。故事很簡單也很殘忍：一個叫 Vanessa 的女人對著鏡子等了二十年的愛人，等來的卻是他的兒子。Noseda 用的是後來收緊的三幕修訂版，在甘迺迪中心現場錄製，所以這版不是棚裡修乾淨的那種——你能聽見樂隊在大段獨白底下那種不安分的暗湧，會喘氣。卡士很硬：Nicole Heaston 的 Vanessa、J'Nai Bridges 演那個真正動人的 Erika、Matthew Polenzani 演不值得等的浪子 Anatol，還有 Susan Graham 同 Thomas Hampson 壓陣。美國人寫的後浪漫主義，聽起來卻像理查·史特勞斯在新英格蘭落了一整場雪。今天最該熄掉電話、由頭聽到尾的一張。

Brandon Patrick George & Bryan Wagorn — The Deep Has Always Known Me

Genre類型

Classical / Flute Recital / Contemporary

Label廠牌

Pentatone

Format介質

SACD / Hi-Res

Released發行

2026-05-29

The whole recital is pinned to a single water-nymph—Undine, who rises out of the depths, falls in love, and is turned human for her trouble. Reinecke's flute sonata, the one that names her outright, sits at the center; around it George and Wagorn arrange Still, Florence Price, Lili Boulanger, and Schubert. George, the flutist of Imani Winds, has a low register so thick it barely reads as flute at all—more like someone speaking from underwater. The shrewdest move is recasting five of Price's songs as wordless flute lines: you don't miss the text, because the breath has already done the grieving. A record entirely about longing that never says a word. 整張專輯釘在一個水妖身上——Undine，那個從水裡浮上來、愛上凡人、最後變成人的傳說。曲目中心是 Reinecke 那首明寫「Undine」的長笛奏鳴曲，周圍擺著 William Grant Still、Florence Price、Lili Boulanger 同 Schubert。George 是 Imani Winds 的長笛手，他的低音區音色厚得幾乎不像長笛，更像有人喺水底講嘢。把 Price 那五首藝術歌曲改成無詞的長笛版本是全碟最聰明的一手：你根本唔需要歌詞，長笛已經替那口氣嘆完了。一張關於「掛念」的唱片，由頭到尾沒有一個字。

Robinson Khoury — Transara

Genre類型

Jazz / Trombone / Electronics

Label廠牌

ACT Music

Format介質

CD / Vinyl / Digital

Released發行

2026-05-29

The trombone is, by long tradition, the instrument that holds down the back of the jazz section; Khoury drags it to the front of the stage and patches it through a modular synth. His ACT debut is a trio—Anissa Nehari on percussion, Léo Yassef on keys—and it extends the language of last year's MŸA: trombone, voice, and electronics braided into a single thread that keens one minute and glows the next. The titles arrive half in Arabic and half in French ("Alaoui Club," "Taxi Brousse," "Sumud"), tracing a mixed Mediterranean inheritance on both shores at once. This is not the jazz of display. It is brass used frankly as a throat. 長號喺爵士裡常年是個墊底的聲部，Khoury 偏要將它推到聚光燈下，仲接上一臺調制合成器。這位法國長號手的 ACT 首作，三重奏編制——加上 Anissa Nehari 的敲擊同 Léo Yassef 的鍵盤——延續了上一張 MŸA 的思路：長號、人聲、電子三股線扭埋一齊，時而嗚咽，時而發燙。曲名一半阿拉伯語一半法語（「Alaoui Club」「Taxi Brousse」「Sumud」），底子是地中海兩岸的混血記憶。這不是炫技那種爵士，而是將銅管徹底當成一副嗓子來用的那種——更接近吟唱，而不是吹奏。

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC — Noise Face Landscape

Genre類型

Exotica / Future Jazz / Lounge

Label廠牌

Kakubarhythm

Format介質

CD / Vinyl / Streaming

Released發行

2026-05-20

The Tokyo producer's raw material is videotape—VHS cassettes salvaged from defunct rental shops and recycling bins, sampled for picture and sound alike. The source footage here spans 2020 to 2026, and the opener, "1000 Years Ago," is laid directly over some stranger's home movie of a trip through 1990s China, the original narration left intact. The mood is warm and slightly seasick: South Seas cha-cha, moonlit lounge, a Yo La Tengo cover sung by mmm, a turn from the Korean folk singer Lee Heemoon. It plays like dozing off in front of a television that won't quite tune, and waking on a beach that belongs to some other decade. 東京這位作者的原料是舊錄影帶——從倒閉的錄影帶舖同回收店裡淘來的 VHS，畫面同聲音一齊採樣。這張的素材橫跨 2020 到 2026，開篇「1000 Years Ago」直接搭喺某人九十年代遊歷中國的家庭錄影上，連原始旁白都保留住。整體是那種南洋 cha-cha 加月光 lounge 的暖調子，mmm 唱了一首 Yo La Tengo 的翻唱，韓國京畿民謠歌手 Lee Heemoon 來了一段「興打令」。聽感好特別：像喺一臺調唔準的電視機前面瞌眼瞓，醒來時發現自己坐喺另一個年代的海邊。

One Leg One Eye — CRONE

Genre類型

Experimental Folk / Drone / Doom

Label廠牌

AD 93

Format介質

Vinyl / CD / Digital

Released發行

2026-05-22

This is Ian Lynch of Lankum working alone, and somehow he has come back blacker than the band itself. Four long pieces, drawn from The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel and its one-legged, one-eyed, one-handed hag, who stands in the doorway and recites her thirty-odd names in a single breath before foretelling the king's death. Lynch sings that incantation more or less straight, in Irish, over a rust-colored drone scraped from stacked guitars and strings and threaded with field recordings. This is not folk made to please. It is folk dragged slowly down into tar. The most uncomfortable thing on the list today, and the one I cannot shake. 這是 Lankum 的 Ian Lynch 的個人單飛計劃，今次比 Lankum 本體仲要黑。四首長曲，取材愛爾蘭古神話《Da Derga 旅舍之毀滅》裡那個一條腿、一隻眼、一隻手的女巫——佢企喺門口，用一口氣唸完自己三十幾個名，然後預言國王的死。Lynch 將這段咒語原樣唱咗入去，蓋爾語，底下是層層疊疊的結他同弦樂磨出來的鏽色 drone，溝住田野錄音。這不是好聽那種民謠，而是將民謠埋入瀝青裡慢慢往下拖。今天清單上最唔舒服、亦最難忘的一張。

Lozenge — Everything

Genre類型

Shoegaze / Nu-Gaze / Grunge

Label廠牌

Self-Released

Format介質

Digital / Streaming

Released發行

2026-05-29