Hell Is Asking to Be Loved

“Adagio,” Charlie Haden & the Liberation Music Orchestra
Haden is one of the great jazz bassists and on and off over the last 40 years he has gathered together various musical luminaries (Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Don Cherry, and Paul Motian, to name only a few) and released five albums as the Liberation Music Orchestra. The last track from the 2005 album Not in Our Name is one of the saddest pieces of music ever written, Samuel Barber’s “Adagio.” Here’s a live version. Oliver Stone used it to powerful effect, too.

“Slime & Oxygen,” Black Lips
If you like your rock dirty Black Lips fit the bill nicely!

“Pieces of What,” MGMT
Burn all indie-slackers!

“Swimming,” Sunset Rubdown
This Pacific Northwest band is one of those acquired tastes. I’m not sure I’ve acquired it just yet.

“Detective Daughter,” Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton
This is a really good book-end to Charlie Haden. Emily Haines’s father, Paul, was a jazz lyricist and poet, whose most well known work is a collaboration with Carla Bley called Escalator Over the Hill. Emily designed her album cover for Knives Don’t Have Your Back as a tribute to him. I had the chance to interview her when I was at The Current.