Random Album Effect - Quiet

An afternoon and evening of quiet music. I was working on my laptop and listening to another group of Random Album Effect. I still enjoy doing this and I'm always surprised and fascinated with what I hear. This time Random Album Effect - Quiet.

I started out with a Jesse Winchester tribute album. I have been listening to a few cover song albums recently and have been updating some of my cover mixes in my Final Version series. I wanted to check out this album which I hadn't listened to in some time. I immediately liked everything that I heard from artists like Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Lyle Lovett, James Taylor, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Little Feat, Allen Toussaint and others. Lots of great songs and some real classics.

Next came up the band Houses which is a dreamy synth pop band from Chicago and basically a male/female duo. I really like their first album All Night from 2010 and have used a few songs on mixes. I really hadn't listened to this album here much but it is also very good and held my attention throughout. I'm going to use a few more of these songs on another mix.

Evening Hymns is a Canadian spiritual sounding alternative folk group which is basically a single artists with different backing musicians. I have a couple of his albums and especially like this one. I've used several songs from this album on mixes too. The music was moody and quiet and followed Houses nicely.

Then I was surprised to hear Roberta Flack's third album from 1971. She has such a beautiful voice and she fit right in with what I had been hearing the last couple of hours. I love her music and have five of her albums from 1969 to 1975. I haven't heard this much recently.

After this 70's gem came a very nice quietly soft album from Kings of Convenience. I guess these albums have all been working together because they all have "quiet" in their titles. This music was incredibly sublime, melodic and bittersweet. I love this band which is an indie folk-pop duo from Norway. I have four of their albums and they are all very good. One of them titles Versus is a remix version of songs from this album. I've used some of them in my Night Chill groove mixes.

The next album was a wonderful surprise. I forgot I had this Ben Webster compilation of ballads in my collection. This is all quiet romantic ballads collected from throughout his career and compiled by Verve Records in 2000. It fit perfectly into the groove of quiet music I had been listening to all afternoon and early evening. I will have this on again soon. Nice dinner music.

The finale of the set came from Nick Lowe. Suddenly there was a beat and the song What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding was the leadoff song for his greatest hits double CD collection released in 2009 that covers his career up to that point including solo albums and collaborations. A great way to end the set after about five and a half hours and not very quiet anymore. I didn't listen to all of this Nick Lowe as it's a two and a half hour set so I will get back to it another time.

Overall a great set of music and I enjoyed every minute of it.

• Various Artists - Quiet About It: A Tribute To Jesse Winchester, 2012
• Houses - Quiet Darkness, 2013
• Evening Hymns - Quiet Energies, 2015
• Roberta Flack - Quiet Fire, 1971
• Kings of Convenience - Quiet is the New Loud, 2001
• Ben Webster - Quiet Now: Until Tonight, 2000
• Nick Lowe - Quiet Please: The Best of Nick Lowe, 2009