Reviews by kuvien

One of the strongest feelings I've ever had about being trapped inside music but not restrained. There is so much room to explore, to choose a path, to approach or not approach. It's like a bedraggled mountain fae girl wandered into an Appalachian mental asylum, so as long as she's gonna be in there, I'm gonna be here sat in front of the broken black-and-white television watching old war films. I keep looking up, though, distracted by the singing among the noise.

Part haunting, part industrial, all weird and warbly. Throw this on next time you're snowed in. Whether you can sit back with a hot drink and let this album soothe you indicates what kind of person you are.

This is marvelous, full of beautiful and interesting folk, with songs based on Jesus' parables, like the ten wise virgins and the ten foolish virgins. I'm sure the English poet, Cædmon, would be proud.

Holy shit! This is just Minecraft music.

It's not coffee. It's tea. That whistle means the water is boiling. You boil water for tea, not coffee.

Halvorson, Fujiwara, Reid. The three names I instantly recognized when I first glanced at the album cover, but the delightful first listen let me know that there is a lot more at work here in the 15-member big-band excursion across three longform compositions, the shortest of which clocking in at just under 11 minutes. This music, proudly indebted to its Braxtonian concepts, features improvisational layering and noise that lets you know right away that it's more experimental than it is big band.

St. Patrick would kick this guy's ass.

Fuck this guy. Fuck his music. Fuck his opportunism. From the first lyric.

It’s considered a good parenting move to play this for your baby as she sleeps in her crib. Trust me: she will appreciate it for its rarity, if nothing else.

A pointless 30-minute album that feels like it's three hours.

Beautiful, evocative, atmospheric. Just what anyone who’s familiar with these music collectives would expect from these insanely talented artists making fringe music that’s appreciated by anyone with good taste. This live album runs the gamut from crowd-pleasing performances such as “Fly, Fly My Sadness” and “Sunrise” to the mysterious, delicate “Mountain Fairytale” to playful vocal sparring with tubas and melodicas. Heaven and Earth meet in this music, but it’s not all unrelenting glory: they have mercy on us and give us a break with some avant-garde jazz on piano.

"Wave" is the high point on this album for me. I love the vocal experimentation that carries the track through its... well, waves. The rest of the album is wonderful, too, though, offsetting the Russian male throat singing with high and mysterious Bulgarian female wailing. Sergey Starostin's clear, strong vocals act as a tether between the two. This music might require you to take a couple steps back for perspective, because you have to jump around in the music and just listen here and there. The whole choral onslaught is too much to take in at once.

Track 1: I've been getting into minimalism more recently, as long as it's not repetitive (yeah that's right, I'm looking at you, Terry Riley). This isn't. The warm, jazzy opening instantly soothes, like raindrops falling all around but miraculously none of them hitting me. Just there to be enjoyed. Observed.

Track 2: The wordless female vocals of the next track came as quite a surprise. Not at all what I'd have expected on a "minimalist" album, but a welcome treat all the same. Quite a magical moment with the understated plucking of the harp. This could be a psalm.

Track 3: The vibrato of the vocals level out into something more harmonically steady and constant, perhaps to evoke a feeling of effortless and swift flight. Surrounded by clouds, moments wherein the veil of vapor is broken, only to coalesce once again in such soft tones.

Track 4: Juno, the Mother Goddess, protector of hearth and home. More beautiful even than Venus if she but takes the time to put forth all her charms. Even Jupiter's myriad of lovers cannot compare. War ceases for Juno, strife lays down its arms at the sighing of her breath.

There's so much mystery in the heady folk phrasings of his guitar and his voice. This album has dark, tempestuous moments that make it perfect for a stormy night at home with a glass of wine and a thick pair of socks. Hell, just sit in the lean-to and enjoy this one.

The pacing of this album is excellent. Just when your brain is about to melt from the psychedelic vocals of "Monterey", Buckley has mercy and sings the quaint "Moulin Rouge" so sweetly before taking the deep dive to sing to a siren. And how she echoes her mysterious replies through dark waters! Put on your best swimsuit, for death is your bride. Swim the mermaids' caves, but stop up your ears. If you hear human voices, you will wake and drown.

This is one of those albums that, as soon as it starts, makes you rub your hands together and think, “this is gonna be good”. And then Buckley takes you down a vocally psychedelic trip so dangerous it almost veers into madness borne from a disturbing meditation on sex. This is a highly experimental album that will turn off most listeners.

There are many moments in the history of popular music when an artist pivots on what he or she had been doing for years before, when they pull the rug out from under their adoring fans and make them go "what?" It could be because the artist is a provocateur, or it could be because he's trying to score a commercial success. This is one of those moments of trying something new. Buckley had a string of five psychedelic, avant, progressive albums that only music nerds have come, in hindsight, to adore the experimentalism of, and then along comes this attempt at swingin' dick sex music. It's as different as the 60s were from the 70s, from experimental idealism to mainstream raunch. All of you folkheads who are afraid of sex: there's the door. You might just want to buy a ticket out of L.A.

There are all too often those moments in singing competitions where the singer hits the high note and sustains it for a long time, letting the voice vibrate out over the audience. If the note is held too long, applause will inevitably start, and then the cameras will zoom in on the celebrity judges’ faces. The judges know the cameras are on them, and so for the sake of ratings, they will pretend to wipe away tears as they, too, applaud with much manufactured emotion. Those are the moments of TV “magic” that make me recoil in horror. And then there are vocalists like Tim Buckley who are the antithesis of all that. His voice is a crafted instrument, and often he, too, will hold a note, but he’s not doing it for applause. In fact, often what he does—his extension and vibrato—can be a bit unsettling, which is just the effect he’s going for. When the TV competition singers go for those long, high, sustained notes, you know exactly where it’s all going. With Buckley, it’s always a refreshing surprise. Evocative, poetic, passionate vocals.

My teenage daughters heard bits of this while I was listening and were horrified, saying stuff like, "Ew! Listen to it! It's flat!" and "It's trying to be the coolest thing on X Factor and got all four nos!"

After 38 years, these hombres pick up their instruments and show that they still have it. This EP is just a taste of what comes two years later on their second studio album.