Reviews by kuvien

Waaaaaaaaaaaay too long for what it is.

I rated this a long time ago but forgot to mention how much this sucks.

This makes me hate myself for ever taking up music appreciation as a hobby.

This is what happens when you let the founder of learn about tape loops, a revolutionary idea in musique concrète begun in the 1940s, introduce this same disciple of Stockhausen to a painter, and then give them both access to a radio, magnetic tape, and scissors.

Highly inaccessible, unapologetically experimental, and full to the brim with patience-testing weirdness. This is not casual listening, requiring an attentive ear.

Fuck you, TayTay! James Taylor sucks!

Obviously the focus here is the piano, that tumbling downhill wonderful mess of a piano, tumbling and losing all sense of direction as you are bruised from head to foot. And if you survive the fall, you find yourself in an underworld of deep shade, where the black eaves hide only more confusion as the music, a capricious guide, pulls you this way and that. You’re on your feet, but you might as well be tumbling again. You may love the music, but you don’t trust it.

I always feel, when I listen to a free jazz album, that there is a healthy dose of madness in it, and this is no different. It doesn't go absolutely nuts like some titles I've heard, and he admirably restrains the passion in parts, allowing my mind to get just a bit of a handle on the chaos. I like how the bass squeaks as the trumpet gets laryngitis.

A female vocal duet, one soprano and one contralto, add their natural instruments to the river of musical tradition, celebrating femininity in poetry and religion, from Sappho to Hildegard, mostly an a cappella exploration with just a touch of electronics here and there to remind the listener that we're in the here and now and the ancient words and music are still very much alive.

These are songs of war, work, and love, so they're as diverse as they are intense, and they are so serious, seriously-handled, and rich in female memory and cultural history that this album will leave you covering your mouth in shock at how good, how real, this music is. Everything a folkhead could ever want in music is here: politics, oppression, hard work, solidarity, culture, love, and protest. The beautiful, droning, aching, groaning violin cuts right to the core of my heart. These interpretations are a lovely, haunting vista of the past.

She's looking at herself in the mirror as she, on her Bandcamp page, namedrops such artists as Maria Monti and Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Such namedropping makes me squee! A bit of a musical palimpsest, this, as Tarozzi first worked with the poetry of another and then slowly replaced it with her own to better "reflect her own life experiences". The everyday life of motherhood is the driving theme of this album. Pregnancy is a trip, and birth is like Persephone returning to bring Spring back to the Earth. That mirror she's looking in? That's her child.

A quick read of this will give any listener a grounding in what these songs are about: https://www.dianetaraz.com/notes/silver_notes.htm

Sixteen traditional folk tunes, three of them American, two Scottish, one Irish, and the rest English, these songs are going to hit perfectly for those of us who drink trad. folk music like whisky. And it's probably gonna miss pretty much everyone else. Herein live the tales of imprisonment, jealousy, sex work, the societal shame of out-of-wedlock birth, secret women warriors, the societal practice of marrying off young girls to impotent old men, and any other issue you can imagine that affected women at that time! This is one of the most woman-focused albums in my collection. Music by women, for women.

This album is full, colorful, and very easy to listen to, and not because of the lack of trumpets. I love trumpets in jazz, of course, but they're not missed here. The female vocalist on the second track sets the chill mood nicely, and the wild saxophone moments never break the instrument free of its orchestral moorings.

One of those albums excellent for lying back, closing your eyes, and letting yourself get elevated.

What strikes me most about this piece (and it’s all one piece) is the expansive openness of the music palette. There’s just so much room here, and the vistas, empty of everyone and everything, are beautiful in their potentiality. Some are filled first with howls, others with pulses, but all of the empty spaces are eventually filled and yet never crowded.

Such a rich tapestry of sound, consistently engaging and never too long dwelling on one theme, despite this being electronic music. Peppered with found sounds well used. Of course it's quite spacey but without being corny. Quite cosmic, but with the security of artificial gravity beneath your feet.

Like gliding slowly through a frenzied crowd, soaring peacefully through the chaos. The percussion and bass maintain a swift, manic pace, with the piano and synths meandering through their phrases. The violins go both ways. This sounds like a music machine built of many moving parts to hammer out complex rhythms.

This recording is everything that exists between solo voice and percussion. Step into that space, and see what you can find. It is fertile soil, but it is cultivated by whatever you, the listener, bring with you.

This is a solid album and quite impressive for 1991. Quite forward thinking. But is it nosebleed worthy? I think not. Perhaps it's a "you had to be there when it was released" kind of album? I dig this, sure, but it's not even close to a top 100 album. It is a rich, wonderful, atmospheric album, though.

I'll be damned if this isn't the most impressive, jaw-dropping demo tape I've ever heard. This is 19-mfing-75? This is two years before their debut album; this is Talking Heads making this kind of music when the world's future is still asleep.