Reviews by kuvien

Imagine your daughter dying while you're on a two-year two of Europe, then you come back and write a song for her and include it on an album. The more I learn about Parra, the more wtf moments I have.

Another posthumously-released album, this one is a short collection of unreleased tracks, and it's typically Chilean: dealing with themes of child soldiering, political corruption, and the flowing of innocent blood, themes as stark as the stripped down yet passionate acoustic music. The deep, steady percussion really captures the soul of Andean folk.

One of the two earliest musical statements by George Clinton's weird collective, a group of artists content not only to wander among genres and styles but also, when the time calls for it, stand as still as a pointer and pursue a theme to its utter end, that is, following the funk. An excellent start for the band, a debut album that has garnered more appreciation since it's been re-released. One cannot expect an unsuspecting listening public to instantly accept a curveball like this album.

The Afrofuturistic (not yet a word at the time of this album) concept that started on Mothership Connection (1975) of saving a funkless world from its funklessness continues on here three albums later, but this time with an aquatic twist. Starchild (or is it Funkenstein?) rides dolphins like skis down the watery road to the Emerald City, that is, the sunken Atlantis. Except there's no cataclysm here, just a hidden utopia of Black excellence.

Here’s what I love about Parliament: they’re so damn good at what they do that they can take a stupid little idea and just turn it over and inside out and every which way, and though you might think they’d run it into the ground, they don’t—it never gets stale, no matter how long they sing about “three blind mice” or whatever. Oh, and if you’re ill (especially in the head), consider stopping taking all those pills. There’s only one pill you need to cure you: Parliament.

A bit Eurovision, innit?

This might be overly long, but it's a damn good album if you've got a big appetite for (weird) vocal jazz. For me, there's nothing closer to Heaven than a female vocalist amid a jazz ensemble. Add in a bit of international spice, and you've got a recipe for a longform, introspective, perhaps even evocative listening session.

I should playlist the amazing tracks and ditch the rest.

This music is so mellow it's almost soporific, but that's not a bad thing. As someone who lives in the middle of a noisy, crowded city, I can look up between the skyscrapers and imagine how peaceful--how silent!--it must be for the birds floating weightless on the air currents racing among the buildings.

A talented free-improv Italian guitarist teams up with the ever-lovely, always-crazy Iva Bittová to give her a space, before a live audience, to gasp, groan, whine, moan, and play about in the only delightful (exasperating?) way she can. I know people who'd turn this shit off in the middle of the first track, but for me, this kind of silly yet serious exploration of voice and guitar is exactly what tickles my ear and excites my spirit. The comparisons of Iva to a cat are not new, and here, 30 years into her career, she doubles down in being a sometimes-purring, sometimes-toy-chasing feline. But always mysterious. (For those of you who are diehard Bittová fans already, see if you can spot the moment she reprises a little bit of Bílé inferno.)

What the high-class wraiths down in Stygia get all dressed up to go out and listen to during their night at the opera. Card-playing is overrated; the theater is where it's at, where the still waters run black as time with no memory.

Beautiful, lush, soothing vocal performances. That's pretty much it. It's a slow, floating album. I guess there are lyrics, but they're not important to me. It's all about the aural qualities of the vocals, underwater, as you play in a garden of tall, waving seaweed.

Hear that? That's the rhythm of the hobbyhorses inviting you to ride in search of that chorus of distant voices (all one voice, actually), trapped in some deep well somewhere. Wherever it is, there's a party going on, so when you're picking out your costume, make sure it's waterproof. They've already got the bongos and tambourines.

The first track is so minimal, with such long spaces of silence, that I'm sure more than one person was like "what is this? Is the file broken?" I like him starting an album that way, though; starting with a track that sounds like it'd be an interlude somewhere in the middle. Quite a confessional album, talking about such intensely personal things as his sleep patterns, his specific anxieties, his musings on gender roles both in mythology and in the modern world. Basically, a very 21st-century album. The soothing beauty of the violin- and synth-driven music belies the confused, unsettling lyrics.

Very nice sounds, very misguided messages.

Pallett uses violins the way does and woodwind riffs the way does. The result is charming and magical chamber/art pop.

On their third album, Pavvo's number drops from 8-10 to 3, and it's a stark shift in their sound, obviously much simpler and more stripped down. Vocals, piano, and sax / clarinet meet for a quirky yet serious conversation inside a mad birdhouse. Things mellow out near the end, once they're all talked out, as it were. Imagine your dreams if you were sung to sleep with these ladies' lullaby!

With strong avant-prog flourishes and stylings on vocal jazz, this album is the brainchild of Ethiopian-born Swedish vocalist Sofia Jernberg and Swedish pianist Cecilia Persson. Basically, they are each responsible for writing about every other song on the album, giving us alternating glimpses into their individual styles. Like a lot of avant-prog, the lyrics are often whimsical nonsense, and the wild music bursts out of quieter phrases like a madman escaping the looney bin. Insanely playful in its exactitude, reminding me a bit of Henry Cow. This is where female vocals meet acute angles and nearly hyperventilate.

It's like birds learned to play jazz and then taught it to sheep. Barnyard insanity ensues.

This is prime Finders Keepers real estate. Music from another time, another place, just "world" and "lo-fi" enough to satisfy any hipster's lust for vinyl that's never been re-released. Listen to the "warm" crackles preserved on those FLAC files! Whew. Almost passed out there.