Reviews by kuvien

Imagine you have a fire and an unknown amount of fuel. What do you do? Do you throw all the fuel on the fire and let it go up in a glorious blaze, or do you eke it out and keep a warm but safe fire burning for a long time? Now imagine that you know exactly how much fuel you have, and you can burn it how you like, creating blazes when necessary, and letting the fire die down when appropriate. Is that ability anything short of magic?

The plot is as bad as the music is good. It's rather like a dream, full of powerful yet disjointed images. Every genre has its experimental works, and I feel like this is one of them for opera. I could just be talking out my ass, though. First of all, it's in German, not Italian. There are weird (and cheesy) sound effects, and the recitatives are much more talk-y than Italian ones. Plain German for plain people...except that there's nothing plain about this magical journey. I mean, a dude wears a bird costume through the whole thing.

And don't forget that this is basically just a story of two dudes, one with a flute and the other with a set of bells, who go on a quest to get laid. Yes. A flute and bells.

If you’re ever chasing a runaway horse on your motorcycle, put this in your ears. It’ll be a guide for you, helping you understand the skittish movements of the horse, how it slows down when you get near it, only to bolt once you stop. Then it’s back on your bike again and zooming off after the incorrigible steed until, at last, after a long chase down streets and across fields you eventually get a hand on its reins and pull it to a stop.

The bold brass storms upon the joviality of the strings, and then the woodwinds join in the nuanced pastoral bliss before a traveling court with all its lords and sycophants make a solemn progress through the countryside. The IV allegro is so dramatic, epic, and moving. Like an unmitigated celebration of all that music has to offer, and it always makes me alternate between sighs and grins.

Composed in 1976, this recording was made in 1993, featuring a beautiful female soprano voice singing in three movements: a lament of Our Lady of Sorrows, a message written by a prisoner of the Nazis, and a folk lament of a woman for her son killed during the Silesian civil wars. The themes of motherhood, death, and sorrow are readily apparent. It seems that Górecki is quite famous for this work but not any of his others, but based on this recording, his other works are probably worth exploring. I got all this info from Wikipedia, since I knew nothing about this slow-moving, subdued, and beautiful composition.

This is a relentless exploration of neo-pagan folk, complete with the flourishes of cackling, female witch-vocals expressed only as Poles can. Listen closely to the whispers.

Heavily ritualistic and slow burning, this one spins you in circles, and the pagan female vocals draw you deeper into the dance.

I’ve got a soft spot for rock operas, be they pretentious or no. I just enjoy narrative, especially in song. I guess that’s why I dig show tunes and musicals, too. The Who’s first three albums bore me to tears. Mod is definitely not for me, but then they switch gears and do a rock opera? Yeah, people saw it as pretentious, but coming at this album many years later, I judge it based on what it is, not on what came before it. It’s a solid concept album with a lot of passion and energy in its clever songwriting.

"Here I Go Again" kicks as much ass as "Is This Love" encapsulates the hard rock love ballad.

Not sure what to say about this one. It's really great. I kept thinking as I was listening through this most recent time that it sounds like a tame, more digestible version of some of those sound collage tapes Bruce likes. I might recommend this recording to him. I'm sure he'd dig the lo-fi aesthetic as well as the orgasmic female wailing.

Yeah, that's gonna be a massive "no" from me, dawg.

I love the twangy female country vocals scattered throughout but especially on “Temporary Ground”. Lots of catchy blues songs here—what you hear is what you get. “Entitlement” is one of my favorite tracks because of its scathing criticism of modern self-absorbed thinking. Don’t nobody owe you nothing!

Fuck you, Fantano, and all your idiot sycophants who have infested RYM. The idiots used to be content to look through the windows; now they have entered the building, putting this piece of shit album in the canon. Rarely have so many people been duped by an artist faking like she has it.

A folk interpretation of some Shakespearean poetry and plays, delving into the harsh reality of our shared mortality, the evil of which being mitigated by the consolation of memory. It's right there in the title of the album, that archetypal hope that lives within each human heart. And if it lives not there, one might question one's humanity. The wonderful drone of the pump organ runs through this music like thick blood.

Kanye, you shut your whore mouth about TayTay!

Fuck you, bitch, for making me listen to Kanye.

I have a weakness for female vocals, for folk, and for a woman interpreting canonical folk songs with nothing but her sensibility and her banjo.

Whetstone-core.

Guys, my favorite part is when it crescends.

Are the straights okay?