Reviews by kuvien

This album is four established, talented folk artists who got together to have some fun. Ya know, sit around someone's living room and just play some tepid, safe songs that are fun to do in the moment. And that's fine. The problem is that they mistook that experience and took all this superfluous crap into the studio. Sunk-cost fallacy, though: once they got into the studio, they realized all this music kinda sucked but went with it anyway because they already have their own successful projects.

Part introspective cello music for the background, part lonely guitar floating in space music. Like it's out there surrounded by the cold, singing spheres, this is music for when you're moving slowly but everything and everyone around you in speeding by. You are the calm center.

The most exciting liner notes for me are always on jazz albums. Monk the composer on piano, of course, but Coltrane on tenor sax and Art Blakey on drums. Good stuff! I just get so happy seeing these other names, because then when this is done I can keep the party going with Mosaic or Olé Coltrane. It’s all connected, everyone playing with everyone else and helping one another out. I don’t really know anything about jazz, but I believe that one of the most important elements of good jazz is chemistry and familiarity with the people you’re playing with.

Monk’s such a weird guy, but I guess what I like best about him is how it can seem like he’s just randomly banging on the piano, but he’s obviously not. It’s like being such a good actor that you can act like you’re not good at acting. That’s the way Monk’s playing seems to me. Not an “it’s so bad it’s good” thing, but rather this dude is able to break rules and still make it sound amazing.

There is some underlying restlessness to this music (except for the last track), as if something is on the verge of breaking but never does. There is also a niggling notion of repetitiveness irritating* the ear at certain points.

*not to mean it's bad, just a way of explaining the sound. If irritation is intended and done well, it can be a good way of communicating what you want to say.

A delightful mix of original compositions and renditions of Ellington, Taki, and Arlen. Note the drastic yet welcome change of pace between the first and second tracks, as Monk’s locomotive brings us bopping into the station, there awaiting us a low-lit, smoky lounge. Can’t stay here forever, though. Monk’s tripping piano gets you moving again. Flip the record, put the needle down, begin Side B with “Japanese Folk Song”, which is indeed 「荒城の月」 (moon over a ruined castle), written over a hundred years ago. As it sounds so different from everything else, this seems to me to be the centerpiece of the album. I really enjoy the barely audible singing in the background, echoing the piano.

The album cover is a wonderful depiction of how the music sounds. Limited, deliberate movement. Precise, measured space between the vocalists. I feel it'd be perfect if the album cover was turned on its side. Prostrate while still standing. That's the way the music feels to me, like someone dreaming awake. Sleep-standing.

The Japanese have a tradition of eating slices of fresh ginger between pieces of sushi to cleanse the palate, thus ensuring the flavor of the previous sushi doesn’t mix with / mitigate against the flavor of the next piece. Sometimes in my music appreciation journey, I get the feeling like sounds are starting to mix together, and things are getting a bit confusing or boring, and then along comes Monk and, like a slice of fresh ginger, she cleanses my palate and reminds me why I love music so much.

Unlike Monk's operas and extended vocal work both alone and with others, this album is everything Monk can do with her voice in bite-sized, comprehensible chunks. Yes, mixing metaphors is appropriate when writing of Monk's music, because it's food for the brain. The first half of this album is positively skeletal, and it's not until "Memory Song" that we hear a voice other than Monk's and an instrument other than a synthesizer. Some fleshing out follows with percussion, as well. Put simply: Monk's voice is an avant-garde treasure of trills, titters, and stutters, her compositions nuanced, layered, and beautifully-evocative.

This is like someone’s strangling a cat, except that the strangler is really good at strangling cats, and the cat is really good at getting strangled. Sing from the back of the throat, sing from the jowls, sing through the nose. The repetitive piano phrasings are just there to maintain the song structure while Monk sings notes as short as she can, sings notes as long as she can. The vocals express manic delight and ponderous sorrow, and it’s done mostly without words. There comes later a flirtation with male choral vocals and droning cellos, all there to showcase Monk’s fey vocals.

I've seen the film to which this haunting, minimal vocal music is set, and it is fascinating. It’s the kind of arthouse cinema most people would have no patience for. Basically a 14th-century girl has visions of the future, specifically the 20th century, but no one can understand when she tries to explain to people what she is seeing. The visions are as inscrutable as this music. Only a madwoman understands the girl's visions, and they speak to each other through sympathetic music.

Note to self: never listen to another album by this guy.

I wonder why they wrote their title in French for the rest of the world but basically called this pop music for their Turkish brethren. Maybe because the music sounded like today's pop music (at that time) in Istanbul but sounded like something from yesteryear to Western ears?

Eventually things will get so bad that the people left alive will wish they were dead. They'll beg the hills to fall on them, cover them, end their miserable existences. So imagine being dead before the ship sinks. You'd be one of the lucky ones, wouldn't you?

Modest Mouse is my favorite indie rock band, but maybe that's not saying much, since I don't listen to a lot of indie rock. So much of it is bland and indistinguishable from the rest, but Modest Mouse stands out. "Custom Concern" is the highlight here, one of my favorite MM tracks. When I leave the house for work every morning, I sing quietly to myself, "gotta go to work, gotta go to work, gotta have a job." Though my life isn't bleak like the one described in the song, still... it sucks to go to work. The slow percussion, the off-balance crescendo--disconcertingly beautiful. One of MM's hallmarks is their ability to perfectly juggle tempo changes and intensity shifts, breaking songs up into unofficial sections. I love that about them. And I love that slight lisp. There are string bends all over this, as numerous as the truck stops you pass on your long drive to nowhere.

A great collection of fun singalong songs, but I’d update it from “look out the window of my color TV” to “look out the window of my smartphone”. Either way, we’re looking out artificial windows onto an artificial world.

A beautiful EP, a digest of everything I want to hear from this band, a band so good they defy my hatred of emo slacker music.

They've got a real talent for making sad music that's fun and witty. Usually sad music is just...sad. And thus kinda boring. Not so here. I guess that's why the album name is so spot-on.

This just in!

"You Wasted Life! Why Wouldn't You Waste the Afterlife?"

and

"We've Got One Chance to Get Everything Right."

How do those headlines grab you? Man. I think I need a cold one now.

Walking through the center of a giant hollowed-out machine as it reassembles itself from the inside out.

It's all mellow, cryptic folk until the penultimate track when the guitars, almost like an answer to VU's "Heroin", melt your brain. And that sudden turn makes this archival release kick ass.