whatever happened to trumpets and strings

Some of them were put into synth modules and given to hip-hop producers. Spiritualized took the rest of them.

Bobby Conn?

They're in a box at the back of my closet.

You hear them a bit here and there - Pulp, most obviously, probably because of the Scott Walker influence. Brass was always at its strongest in soul and funk, I thought. And, come to think of it, my favourite uses of violin are in soul too - the pizzicato plucking on Ann Peebles' I Can't Stand The Rain and the shimmering strings on Al Green's How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. Both produced by Willie Mitchell, not remotely coincidentally. Best brass ever: King Curtis's sax on Yakety-Yak. Better than any of that jazz nonsense (said partly to wind up an old friend).

They are all at rings around the world

They are all in rings around the world

The trumpets and strings are all dancing and getting down on Simon Warner's album, Waiting Rooms. Check it out.

Stereolab uses them OK. Eric Matthews did it in the 90s, but I never really liked him too much. Elvis Costello has been known to use an orchestra from time to time, though XTC outdid him in one move on Apple Venus. Divine Comedy used to do it, and Bjork did it for Selmasongs. Hmmm, it seems like most folks these days are only willing to do it for a short period of time before moving on.

Well if you want that 60s sound it's got to be the High Llamas hasn't it? Try Hawaii and / or Snowbug. Sean O'Hagan is a terrific arranger for other people as well - the last Stereolab album - Sound-Dust - is full of his brass and strings. Other than that - Fugu, maybe, but just cause they're in the same vein as HL and there's nice brass and violin on Ben Fold's Five, especially Whatever...

Now if you're talking strings n trumpets, surely ...few have been doing it with consistent coolness as Swing Out Sister over the past fifteen years. "Kaleidpscope World", in particular "You On My Mind" and "Forever Blue", is arranged beautifully (yes, I know Jimmy Webb had a hand in it) and sounds timeless. They are still going, and still massive in Japan (which incidentally is a good thing).

dleone beat me to the stereolab ref, i was going to say they emerged on 'dots and loops' but apparently to ill effect on stereolab listeners 'round these parts.... :-)

Rings Around the World, yes. The DVD is a worthy purchase.

The Avalanches. Yeah, the Avalanches.

You are not allowed to use both in the one song, by decree of me. Anyway, trumpets were the new strings for a while, but now it's back to basics. Strings will be cool again next year.

Often those strings are a stumbling block for me in older pop music. I think I would like Dusty Springfield more if it weren't for the way strings are employed. Trumpets don't bother me.

(I've been forced to adopt to the use of string sections in Arabic music, otherwise I would have to give up most of my favorite singers. They don't sound exactly like the string sections you are talking about, usually, except maybe in the case of Fairouz*.)

*now playing

I have a general sense of what you're talking about, DRM, but do please explain further since you have a better sense of Arabic popular music of recent decades -- what would you say the key differences are?

Well, alright, Ned, I will oblige.

The string sections in the Arabic popular music I'm thinking of (which I hesitate to call "pop music," because it's so rooted in their classical tradition, and yet calling it classical music seems misleading too) often play a sort of accent to the vocal line. The singer finishes a line and then the strings go "Dada dada DA" or something like that. That's not all they do by any means, but that is one of the big cliches, so to speak, of Arabic music (at least from the 50's through the 70's). Also, they sound a little dissonant at times, to my ears, presumably because they are playing microtonally. On the other hand, I have seen Arab critics who complain about them making a racket; but it's hard for me to believe that the string sections for the best, most prominent, singers have that funny sound as a result of incompetence. At any rate, they tend to have a harsher sound than a western string section (to these western ears). But in some ways that frequent harshness makes them more palatable to me that the very smooth sort of string sound I think is under discussion here.

Okay, for example, I am playing (to help me get a handle on this) the Oum Kalthoum song "El Hob Kedah," from the late 50's I think. The violin section usually grows much quieter while she sings, and then comes back more loudly after a line is finished, as if they are trading places. Another thing the strings will do is to simply play the same melodic line the singer is singing, more closely than I think would normally be true in western music. But there are lots of exceptions. For instance, the sixth track on Fairouz's "Andaloussiyat" (sorry, figuring out the title is going to be difficult) has a string section which sounds and functions much more like a western sring section.

My Life Story, The Verve & Blur spring to mind.

jim o'rourke is the king of strings.

i just remembered to say that the trumpets were on Ivy