Reviews by kuvien

Snijders plays every instrument on this album, making it quite atypical for jazz. This recording doesn't break any new ground, but it's a pleasant flute-based jazz album, and there just aren't that many of those. Bamboo flutes and piccolos can soothe even the wildest heart, I imagine. There is a watercourse way quality to this jazz: just float downstream and let the river take you wherever it will.

Catchy, tight, easy-to-understand lyrics, typical punk themes like going to work to chase that dollar but dying a little each day. And it not being worth it.

Minus the one trippy psych guitar / harpsichord track, most of this album sounds like that carefree kind of sunshine on your windy hair music. But the content is anything but. The album opens with a meditation on massacre of native American nations by the European immigrants, and other dark highlights include a seemingly cute boyfriend-girlfriend song about the game of love wherein there are no winners, and a pleasant little string quartet accompanying musings on why we all must die.

Elliott is a poppy growing up out of a crack in the sidewalk, a flower to be admired but one you know will eventually be carelessly trampled upon. It’s all there in the music, like a blueprint.

This is not necessarily his best album, but he was writing and performing from a position of greater strength than on any of his other albums. There’s no such thing as a happy Elliott Smith album, but at least this one isn’t heartbroken. I think “Kiwi Maddog 20/20” needs to be uses as the soundtrack during an intimate drinking scene in a film.

I feel like this archival collection is for the diehard fans. I own every Elliott Smith studio album and rate them all as perfect, but this one... well, it's Elliott, so there's that. But a lot of these songs lack the brilliance of what lives on in the immortality of the studio releases. Basically, all the things he's saying here he says better on anything between his debut and Basement.

It is a testament to the beauty of Elliott Smith’s heart and the genius of his musical mind that he can take corny, trite lyrics like “oh my darling, Clementine / dreadful sorry, Clementine” and turn them into something so heartbreaking and memorable that I can’t even remember how the original goes. This is the most perfect album to listen to while you drink yourself into slow-mo. I just wish it snowed where I live. I miss making snow angels.

Imagine being so unique and interesting a vocalist that another artist modifies mechanical instruments around your personality and style, creating an industrial womb from which you can chant, wail, and groan your poetry.

One time Robin tried to recommend this album to Batman because Robin thought he was cool and knew cool music that Batman didn't know about, but Batman slapped Robin before he could get the words out and told Robin that he'd already heard this album and that it's overrated trash.

James Blunt and John Mayer had a turd-baby and then asked Chris Martin to be its godfather. Martin took that turd under his wing and taught it everything he knew (all in about two years). Why do I reference so many singers here? Because musically this album is a collection of the worst elements of derivative music. Emotioncore at its violin-playing worst. Lyrically, it is a sophomoric collection of vapid musings and cliched conclusions, mixed metaphors that make no sense. The singer thinks that if he feels hard enough, he can make good music.

So, what kind of hat do you wear? Is it appropriate, and will others like it? These are serious questions put to the listener rather comically. This is as quirky as collaborations come, and it’s ever-so delightful, lovely, and idiosyncratic! I play "Caucasian Lullaby" for my white kids before bed every night.

I’m already the kind of listener inclined to like pop, but when it’s quirky and playful like this, I just fall in love. Everything about this is musically interesting, not a dull moment. And her voice is just so charming, alternating between soft and sassy.

Oddball cabaret pop tunes. I’ve adored Dagmar’s quirky yet bold (sexy?) vocals since I heard her collaborate with Henry Cow. This album is a long-time coming addition to my permanent rotation. Boppy and fun songs overall, even splashes of some groovy tropical motifs, complete with bongos.

One time I missed the last train out of Tokyo and was stuck in Shinjuku for the night, so my friends and I went drinking in some basement bar that just kept playing the same hour-long Slade DVD over and over again.

Decent but lacking in distinctive character.

If babies listened to metal, this is what it would be. This is warm blanket metal. This is mother's arms metal. This is sucking thumb metal. This is just so damn comforting. Not a criticism at all. I love every moment of this, and those atmospheric growls? Yeah, they scare the monsters back under the bed and into the closet.

This album is this band's only release, as mysterious as the lyrical content of these mellifluous songs. This is a wonderfully anachronistic collection of Irish folk, beautiful, haunting, and transcendent.

Bittová steps out from behind her violin to sing Moravian poetry as she is accompanied by a string quartet. Lovely Iva is charming and evocative as ever, but honestly, I'd listen to her sing the phone book.

Cosplay pagan folk.

A mellow, enchanting collaboration of kora and cello, connecting not only Mali and France but studio and rooftop. Side B of this album was recorded in the studio, but Side A was performed and recorded on the rooftop of Sissoko's home in Ntomikorobougou, Mali. The distant bleating of sheep is not some affected inclusion of rustic soundbytes but rather the actual sounds of the village. The album is perfectly named, for the duo played at night, sending their whispering music into their neighbors' dreams.