(Nicole:) One of the best responses we've ever had for our LNMC was one that our very own NonnyMouse suggested. It's been a while since she's contributed anything, so I asked her if she'd like to do another one. Here it is:

I still have records. (For those of you who are too young to remember Viet Nam, never mind Watergate, records are those big, black Frisbee-like things in flimsy cardboard album covers.) At only 150 albums or so, I wouldn't actually call it a ‘collection'; it's just a motley hodgepodge of what I bought the last time I was a student in college. Thirty years ago. They all got put into storage in the States when I moved to Europe. More than twenty years ago. I shipped them over about five years ago. None of them have been played in a quarter of a century. But now... I have a record player. So I'm going through them all, deciding on which I treasure enough to ship once more.

I bought William Ackerman's ‘It Takes A Year' brand-new in 1977. Thirty years later, I carefully extracted the record, holding it by the edges (never touch the grooves with your bare fingers!) and laid it carefully onto the turntable, made sure there was no lint or dust on the vinyl, positioned the tone arm exactly right before lowering the brand-new stylus ever so gently onto the lead-in edge and listened to music I last heard before Britney Spears was even a zygote. Maybe it was because memories are so powerful, the music you hear in your 20's does something to your heart - I don't know. What I do know is I stood in front of an old record player, listening to the hauntingly beautiful ‘The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit', crackles and hiss and all, and wept.

The closest I can give you to the real thing is this YouTube clip of a cover done by Adam Werner and Michael Manring.

William Ackerman founded Windham Hill Records, now sadly defunct, won some Grammies, gave up the craziness of the music business and moved away from California to the Vermont countryside where he does a few concerts, plays anywhere, even private living rooms, and is still quietly recording some of the best acoustical music known to the human soul. His newest CD, ‘Returning', features ‘Virgin Spirit', both because Ackerman wanted to refine the emotional connection of the work, and because in the past 30 years technology has vastly improved sound quality. Yet while the sound may be richer, the nuances more distinct, the music more matured, there will still be - at least for me - something very moving and unique about that older version, made long ago when we were both young and rough around the edges, that defined my life then, and still defines it now.Tonight's LNMC challenge is to share something powerful enough, without lyrics, to have moved you to tears.

Through The Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol.2)

The holiday weekend is over and I need some Stones. This gem features an oboe solo, and backing vocals by Lennon and McCartney. What more could you want?

Producer and musical Midas Danger Mouse has teamed up with Italian composer Daniel Luppi on the Rome project, due out in May. Recorded in Italy with old timer musicians and influenced by the music of old italian films, it features the vocal talents of Norah Jones and Jack White. Here's a track featuring Mr. White. Happy Friday!

She's So Unusual
	Artist: Cyndi Lauper

Cydi Lauper wrote this song with Rob Hyman of the Hooters (who also provides backing vocals), and Miles Davis covered it in 1985. The video features Captain Lou Albano. What else could you want? Have a good Sunday!

Mezzanine
	Artist: Massive Attack

Massive Attack's Mezzanine is one of my favorite albums of the 90's and this song is my favorite on the record. The track features vocals by Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins and is said to be written about her good friend Jeff Buckley. Let's get ethereal!

John Gorka released his first album, I Know in 1987 on independent label Red House Records. Ten albums later he's still on the label. "What Was That," a typically introspective Gorka composition, was the lead track from his 2001 release, The Company You Keep. It features background harmonies from Ani DiFranco and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

All These People, featuring Kim Burrell

From the album Oh, My Nola

From the Amazon product information:

Having grown up in New Orleans, Harry Connick, Jr. is an iconic product of a city famous for its rich musical history. His new release, Oh, my Nola, is the endearing ode to the rebirth of his hometown and the bright spirit of her people. The album is an impressive collection of classic songs associated with the city and her culture, and also features four original compositions. Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Harry Connick, Jr. proudly sponsor the New Orleans Habitat Musicians Village.

The great Sviatoslav Richter plays Ravel's - Jeux d' eau

Wikipedia:

Jeux d’eau is a piece for solo piano by the French Impressionistic composer, Maurice Ravel. The title often translates to “Fountains”, “Water Games”, and “Playing water” (See Jeux d'eau, water features in gardens.) The piece, a virtuosic tone-poem, is inspired by Franz Liszt (Jeux d'eau a la Villa d'Este), and also as Ravel explained:

Jeux d’eau, appearing in 1901, is at the origin of the pianistic novelities which one would notice in my work. This piece, inspired by the noise of water and by the musical sounds which make one hear the sprays water, the cascades, and the brooks, is based on to motives in the manner of the movement of a sonata—without, however, subjecting itself to the classical tonal plan.

This work is considered one of the first examples of "musical impressionism" among Ravel's compositions...