Reviews by kuvien

Japanese folklore played on toys, rice bowls, clocks, small motors, and various other found-sound instruments, in addition to traditional folk instrumentation. Highly creative, inscrutable music led by mysterious female vocals.

https://laurenoxford.bandcamp.com/album/lauren-oxford

Benjamin Andre is sooooo sexy. So hot he can make a hip hop hater like me like this.

Texture. All texture. That's what this album is. An excellent use of tape music and field recordings, content to lose all cohesion, comfortable with a complete lack of melody. Some delightful repetitive minimalist moments, too, on piano. Hypnotic.

So basically it’s progressive jazz rock, but because it was made by Germans, it’s Krautrock. Got it. More famous than but not as good as *Latin Mass*. A strong King Crimson influence on this one.

I'll spin this every once in a while, but not something I need in rotation.

It's like walking into the Cathedral of Rock, and through the portals beyond you spy vistas both pastoral and mysterious, and there are brushstrokes that only hint at the cosmic expanse above.

This is a progressive rock album as concerned with the narrative as sounding good. The story is a science fiction tale about two planets that revolve around each other, Felona flourishing and Sorona subjected to constant catastrophes. Sitting beside my wife and having her translate the Italian lyrics for me as I listen makes me really feel sorry for Sorona. That end, though, is like the planets smashing together. Quite different in feel from the rest of the album.

One of the best album covers ever, but that's irrelevant to my rating. This is great Italian prog with a satisfying focus on the organ. Some beautiful, triumphant horns, too, heralding the pageantry of this album.

A beautiful, mostly-instrumental album centered around the meditative zither and its accompanying flutes. This is one of those rare albums that simultaneously disturbs and comforts, depending on whether you're floating away on the woodwinds or being dragged back down to the cold earth by the screeching, cave-born strings. Minimal throughout. The vocals--when there are any--are distant and vaguely ritualistic.

This album is at once all over the place and cohesive. The jazz-rock elements of this album really work, blending well with the wilder avant-prog sensibilities. Goes totally disco at one point. Weird. It’s like they lost their minds. I think they were doing it ironically...

Afro-Cuban jazz from Senegal? That's quite the genre journey, but it's all good. "World" music is so often infuriating to me because of how... fake it sounds, no matter how good the musicianship is. This one, however, surprises me with its freshness, which helps me accept some degree of authenticity. This is how you blend music.

It's time to ban men from guitars. They've had their say, they have done their damage.

Thank you for being boring, meaningless, and chill. The cod liver oil of music.

I was on the fence about whether I should rate this 3.0 or 2.5. Thank you for putting hip hop in it and making my job easy. 😊

This is a lovely little find, tucked away in the corner of Bandcamp, a page dedicated not so much to a music group but rather a community and the concept the participants want to explore across the borders where traditional Seketi music meets modern production (including synths and beats). Female vocals chant and sing, giving voice to another local area of the Amazon.

When the detritus of daily life constantly runs through your head, and you just... smile.

This is quite interesting, weird, and quirky. The vocals sound like she's singing/speaking through cheesecloth, though.

Polish trio interprets Italian text with improvised vocals inspired by the unexpected and delightful tones of a prepared guitar, the kind of music that stokes the imagination within the cavernous vault of musical possibility. The restraint these artists show is refreshing, confidence in sparseness.

When I see a "free jazz" tag, I think wild, chaotic, discordant, sometimes even bordering on the ridiculous, but this album is mellow, not at all what I was expecting. Like wooden windchime mellow, thus giving it an introspective atmosphere. The soprano and alto saxophone dance around each other, from room to room, playing hide-and-seek with the bass and percussion. Like someone else wrote, beautiful "klezmer-flavored moments". Hence the overall sneaking-about feel. This is an album that appeals to me most in its use of silent spaces and not being afraid to sculpt the music one note at a time.