Reviews by deksametazon

Script of the Bridge by The Chameleons is a cosmic version of the classic post-punk sound. It's hard for me to throw a quality word that hasn't already been said about such an out-of-series album, in a good way. Unlike other bands under the same roof, The Chameleons here play with progressive tones, thus creating an image of a ruined theater or an abandoned countryside, in contrast to the classic claustrophobic basement tone we are already used to.

For a reason, Script of the Bridge enjoys the status of a cult album that is still listened to today. In addition to the unique sound, lyrically it is very poetic and full of self-doubt and the world around it. Somehow, all this combined goes well right next to each other: desolate instrumentals with paranoid and lonely lyrics. Although over time I try to distance myself from this type of music, I simply cannot help but return to this grail sometimes.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2023: #39 An album from the 1950s (30th Album)

So glad I chose this deep cut over a jazz or pop album from the 50s.

It's like an amalgam of old (old even for the 50s) vocal jazz with the soul of the Atlantic brushing itself on the shores of Brazil. Caymmi's deep and lush voice complements the sparse and empty instrumentation just like a sprinkle of salt goes well on some cakes.

The overall sound is melancholic, but unlike the English-speaking melancholy, this type of Southern American melancholy has a dose of abstract beauty to it. I'm not familliar with the Portuguese language, but reading the translations of some of the songs, it's clear this guy has a way of twisting and turning ideas like a piece of paper, making origami of different animals, but staying in the same lane.

And also, the album is some 27 minutes long, so you have no reason not to listen to this soft, melancholic singing of a man who clearly has a lot on his plate.

Some really funky and groovy stuff on this album. Marco created a real summer vibe.

I dont understand Italian, but for this, I don't have to. Pezzi della sera relies on setting the tone right from the get-go. Beddu is infectious, and Polifemo really gets my heart pumping. Really nice stuff

This compilation is a perfect starting place for those exploring Eva Cassidy, and a good selection of songs for those not willing to venture further. She has a beautiful voice, and the backup musicians are no slouches either.

I can now see where Cohen got his arrangements from for his first two albums. The first few songs have that luscious overlaying of guitars, similarly present on Songs of Love and Hate.

Haitian Dances is a good album for the paradoxical morning. The cold weather with the sun shining type of weather. His guitar playing is undoubtedly good, but I feel like it's missing something for it to take the next step.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2024: #22 A comeback album (39th album)

As is with most artists who come around to reaching the "tombstone" era of their career, Johnny Cash seemed like the artist who had nothing else to give the crowd, given that his 80s era was filled with albums of highly questionable quality (save for The Highwaymen collaboration, which is a shining beacon of light compared to the rest).

Rick Rubin distilled everything Johnny was. He wasn't called The Man in Black for nothing, this is the stuff of a man who has seen everything in life, from love to heartbreak, and from life to death. And he sings about it here in the purest form with only an acoustic guitar, and he does well. His voice is as good as it was in the 50s and 60s, having that emotional quality age like fine wine. The only gripe is that the entire album is done in the same fashion with very little change in atmosphere, but if you're into 40 minutes of stripped-down arrangements, this is the album for you.

As the English would put it:

Posh.

It's a cornerstone of the Canterbury scene and it embodies everything it stands for. Lush orchestration, beautiful singing, and otherworldly instrumental passages. Recommended alone for "Nine Feet Underground", which I say is the "Echoes" of Cantenbury, but everything else is equally as good. Highly recommended.

I don't think i've ever said this for any album:

This all sounds a bit too much for me.

And it's not the music, because it's good. It's the godforsaken length of it. Paperhouse is an amazing psychy tune, and the transition and switch to a more krautrock, and even industrial oriented, Mushroom always makes me stand and think: "Not bad." Halleluwah is a behemothic, funky motor carriage of a song, and Oh Yeah is what every krautrock song should strive to be.

And then we get to side C and D, two sides I can go without. Aumgn and Peking O. are some dissonant long tracks with heaps of experimentation across all boards, with most missing the mark, sadly. Bring Me Coffee or Tea is alright.

Overall thoughts are this: listen to the first four tracks, the rest is meh.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2023: #22 An album from a band formed before 1973 (44th Album)

At this point, Can is mostly interested in dabbling with the arcane art of making ambient soundscapes that they flirted with on earlier releases. Is it a successful endeavour? You can say so.

It starts with the self-titled track, which already tells us that these guys aren't here to fuck around. Future Days is a proto- ambient banger, with a good use Damo's vocals, who have now been reduced to a part of the instrumental collage across the entire album, rather than being a main point of emphasis.

Spray is a funky percussion heaven. The use of multiple percussion instruments weave this tribal rhythm into Jaki Liebezeit's phenomenal tour de force performance.

Moonshake is the shortest, and the most faithful track to the original formula of the early music of Can. Here, Czukay's bass shines bright, with its metallic twang and murky, deep sound.

Bel Air is the longest track. Touching on the main characteristics of ambient music with a dash of experimentation in a "Can way" (even managing to sound like and at moments), it's a blissful experience to listen to. Claustrophobic and wide open, with a lot of optimism inside it.

Can successfully pushed the envelope on this one, with Future Days now being hailed as a benchmark album most artists only dream of making. It's a shame that the band's future days weren't as prolific though.

Other than being a pleasant background listen, I felt very little. It reminds me a lot of Air, in its cutesy mellow presentation. Most definitely better than any Belle and Sebastian I've heard so far, which is a huge plus.

Moonmadness is Camel's fourth album, and it caps off their well-known quadrilogy of albums made by their most famous lineup: Latimer, Bardens, Ferguson, and Ward.

Coming off the concept album, The Snow Goose, which I'm not the biggest fan of, they return to their old formula, which proved that it worked: lyric-centered songs with symphonic passages here and there. And while it does sound fairly identical to the concept we've seen in the first two albums, this one borrows the thing I liked the most from The Snow Goose, and that's the cold atmosphere it brings. "Song Within a Song" does it best, with its crisp and mysterious-sounding keys and flute, done by Bardens and Latimer respectively.

The rest is as good, and each song fits the narrative of the mellow, cold vastness. "Lunar Sea" has those crystal sounds in the beginning that sound like icicles, "Spirit Of the Water" sounds like mysterious voices in a snow blizzard, and "Air Born" takes jazz and space rock into the mix and creates a good sound.

If you consider this album to be the peak of Camel, I wouldn't object to that. It takes everything they learned from their previous three outings and combines them seamlessly. A perfect ending to a great period of a very creative band.

This is what progressive rock should be rooted in: cool keyboards, vaguely spacy atmospheres, and JAZZ!

Camel's debut is like Pink Floyd but with balls. Not that Pink Floyd had no balls, but Camel's approach is creating an atmosphere with playful and strong compositions. Look at Slow Yourself Down or Never Let Go and you'll see what I mean.

Latimer's vocals can be a bit of a nuisance, since overlapping them with a host of beautiful instruments and then really bending him over on the mixing side of things is a recipe for a bad meal, but changing vocal duties saves the day, alongside with preferring longer instrumental noodlings.

Terry Callier makes a wild kind of soul. Rooted in folk, sometimes funky, and mostly evoking the concrete grasp of Gil Scott Heron and Curtis Mayfield and the sensual energy of Isaac Hayes.

But weirdly, it's nothing of the above. It has this yearning quality for the astral pastures full of warm embraces and serenity. Terry's voice carries the power of both soul and folk legends, capturing the human soul, both in its fragility, and in the cerebral.

Beside that, the beautiful instrumentations and the soothing background vocals are a testament to that, especially on the closing tracks You Don't Care, where both facets play the main part.

Outside the "memorable for all the wrong reasons" Computer, this is a very beautiful album. It's not his best, but it's as far as it can be from his worst. His songwriting gets better with age, and his down to earth demeanor is a breath of fresh air. He doesn't try to go above and beyond, nor go beyond what he's capable of. His penmanship is simple and that I find to be very pleasing. It's an overall net positive, even if it's a bit too long for it's own good.

After leaving VU and trying his hand at solo success, then fucking around with ambient soundscapes and classical arrangments, Johnny boy drops an album that is now considered the high point in his discography, and honestly, I can see why musical connoisseurs and ADHD patients on this site would flock around this album.

Cale was at a tough part of his career. After leaving VU he struggled to find his footing and release something that would wow the audience. Sure, Vintage Violence had somewhat given him attention around mainstream circles, but his next two albums really pushed him back, so he needed somewhat of a prized dog in the competition, especially since some other guy from some other band Cale noodles with in the 60s had released a seminal album a year prior.

Enter Paris 1919 (don't enter Paris in 1919, but enter the album), an ambitional endeavor only a few musicians could pull off successfully. Cale mixed bright and luscious orchestral instrumentation with his seasoned songwriting chops and gave it everything he had.

A3 and A4 are really enjoyable pieces. I liked "Half Past France" with its slow descent into orchestral playing and "Macbeth" is the only song on here that has that teeth-grinding edge, while "Antarctica Starts Here" with its subdued nature caps off the album beautifully. A1 and 2 are a slow start to the album, but have some interesting tidbits, mainly the instrumental arrangments. Only "Graham Greene" is a song I would routinely skip.
And after all of that, the album didn't invoke any emotion in me. Sad, I know. It has everything that a good album should have. Good instrumentation, competent songwriting, and the vocals are nice, but it just misses that ingredient that grabs you by the shoulders and yeets you across the room. This album gently sways you from side to side instead.

All in all, a pretty happy album with exquisite instrumentation. For me though, it feels kinda like day-old bread. Can I eat it? Sure. But will I be satisfied with it? Maybe, but fresh bread is fresh bread. Day-old bread is not something I would be proud of. Not much more to say other than that really. Cale rides the wave of success of Paris 1919 through 1973. I hope nothing bad happens on a particular night in May 1974 just before a particular show that was documented on a particular album.

Paris 1919 was a success on the mainstream front, which landed him a spot on the Island roster.

How did he take it?

Well, he took copious amounts of coke, heroin, opiate and whatever other drug the market carried and created some of the finest claustrophobic music I've heard from him. Fear is a Man's Best Friend probably illustrates it best, with the slow descent from the pop maestro he was known for into the depths of paranoia, or Gun, an angular, proto-punk song with a Krautrock backbone.

The rest carry a sharp feeling of melancholia of a weary man, like The Ship Of Fools and Buffalo Ballet with its lulling melody and pop touch, or Emily which creates a sparse and beautiful atmosphere.

Fear is a stupidly good album that doesn't have a single bad moment. It's a rollercoaster of emotion that never lets up. Slick, scary and menacing, and leaves you wanting more at the end.

At this point in my musical journey, I've come to the conclusion that J.J Cale is physically incapable of rocking out. Look at the track I'm a Gypsy Man, which blew me away with the distorted riff at the beginning, only for grandpa Cale to sooth out everything. That's not a bad thing at all, because J.J is a monolithic musician in the genre of... chill rock. It's just an observation. A rather chill one.

Well I've finally lived to see the day when this was made available in my country. This country-infused blues rock album is one of my favorite albums to put on when I need to time out myself from all the ruckus and noise around me.

Some people might find it a detriment, but I like JJ's dusty voice mixed with safe guitar playing. It adds to the mellow aspect of the thing, and it makes me zone out (in a good way).

I'm trying to make sense out of this one, but so far I'm out of the loop. What I'm hearing is a lack of creativity: lazy dark ambient whose premise is spun in a way to carry the worth of an album that has nothing to offer. Strung out emptiness that heavily relies on feeding through the listener's life experience, rather than the composer's ability to make something worthwhile. A low punch, really, since there is a glimpse of ability on her debut (even if it's not my thing).

Perverts make bathtub farting sound like Schubert, and is a testament to how not to continue your career. Lazy idea that shamelessly amplifies a young person's bad experiences.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2023: #9 An album from Central or South America (28th album)

I always loved the Latin fascination of death, and its celebration. Even though I don't understand most of the lyrics, the musicianship around them is universally good, and it combines alternative dreamy, gothic moods and the addition of local influences to make an album I can recommend if you're looking for something "modern" with a touch of rustical, indigenous melodies.

The album does suffer from the idea of putting as much music as you can on a CD, which makes it a bit of a slog to go through, but the positive side of it is that you will find something in the 60 minute runtime that will be